Steve Trinward Steve Trinward is "Soul Proprietor" of Trinwords.Com (wordsmithing and editing services) and a contributing editor for Rational Review.
|
Is Jefferson Smith
Just a Myth? In the first segment of this overview of libertarians, large-L and small, running for Governor in 2002, we examined the campaigns of Ed Thompson and Clyde Cleveland, two candidates considered to have a serious chance of challenging for the position in their respective states. To refresh your memory, here are the five paradigms for serious candidacy we have been examining: 1. Compete and win (or be appointed) at the local level -- Alderman, City Council, County Commissioner, etc. Then climb to state legislature/senate, and after a term or two there, seek a congressional spot. 2. Use small-town (or family?) connections and basic personal charisma to start on a higher local level -- perhaps as Mayor. Use this springboard to launch a statewide Gubernatorial or Congressional run. 3. Build a name for yourself in the community, through volunteer work, issue-campaigns or similar public visibility, then use that personal/political network to seek a legislative or congressional seat. 4. Raise any money you can, from your political colleagues and anyone else you can convince, to run a media-driven race, with no discernible electoral track record or community reputation to speak of. Operate with an almost completely 'professional' (paid) staff, and deflect any efforts to decentralize the process. Run on promises, campaign-hype and "Imagine if ..." rhetoric ... and keep on dancing! 5. Build from the precinct level (door-to-door), organize volunteer support, and bring an army of campaign workers to bear on the effort. De-emphasize fundraising, at least until the volume of supporters has become too significant to be overlooked. Now let's look at the high-profile, devoutly Libertarian, Massachusetts campaign of Carla Howell, already being touted by some as a contender for the LP Presidential 2004 nomination, despite never having won an election or even come close. Under the parameters listed above, her campaign falls squarely into Category #4. None of the other roads seem to fit her philosophy: she has neither sought local office, nor built herself up in the community, nor amassed an army of volunteer campaign workers. However, the tenor of this campaign so far, like the races she has run before, make it almost a textbook case of what not to do if you are running to win the office: 1. Do not have a previous record as an elected official The only offices Carla Howell has run for have been statewide ones, each time as a Libertarian: State Auditor in 1998, when she gained 5% of the vote and the endorsement of the Boston Herald-American; U.S. Senator in 2000, where she picked up about 12% in a close third-place finish; and now it's 2002 and time for Governor (allegedly as a steppingstone to vying for the Libertarian Party Presidential nomination in 2004). Meanwhile, her campaigns have been driven by paid staff, high-dollar fundraising and an almost exclusionary approach to involving others (even other Libertarians) in the effort. In the Senate race, she raised three-quarters of a million dollars, and got that 12 percent in what was essentially a 3-way race, finishing just behind a GOP candidate whose own party had disowned him, whose past was shadowy at best, whose credibility took shots all along the way, and who spent very little money and did minimal promotion on his own behalf. The hardcore Republicant voters, what there were of them, refused to cross party lines, despite a great deal of apparent support for Howell among Independents, taxpayer advocates, gun rights organizations and drug war opponents, to name just a few. Her outreach to a variety of issue-groups built significant support, but on Election Day it was still only a moral victory. This time, she is running against a somewhat fiscally frugal GOP incumbent, Jane Swift, a woman who recently gave birth while in office, and who stepped up from Lt. Governor when the incumbent got appointed Ambassador to Canada. Swift is allegedly hated by her own party and base, and has pissed off many of the traditional power groups that the Republicans have always counted on for votes. Her election is anything but certain. Meanwhile, the Democratic hopefuls so far now include former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who could certainly make some waves in Taxachusetts. However, according to those who know, the true powerhouse on the Donkeycrat side is Shannon O`Brien, the present State Treasurer (and a former state legislator) -- and the daughter of an old political war horse (now Chair of the Governor`s Council), a behind the scenes power broker in Massachusetts politics and a longtime Kennedy Clan friend. The go-ahead for her campaign came from the Kennedys; ex-Congressman Little Joe, an early contender, bowed out of the race so O'Brien could take on the then-pregnant woman Governor, woman to woman. She is also, unlike Howell, a strong speaker and campaigner, and will have Teddy's endorsement and support as well. Howell has been warned that the Democrat will be a formidable force, but that advice has been essentially ignored; she's too focused on combating Swift 2. Know little or nothing about the real issues There is also concern among many Massachusetts Libertarians that Carla Howell is neither well versed in the issue of Liberty, nor capable of spontaneous response when taken off her prepared speeches (written of course by Cloud). Rich Watras is a former (and future?) Libertarian candidate and campaign manager, as well as a longtime and effective LPMA activist. He has also had previous experience working with major-party campaigns, and so knows a little bit about practical politics. As he recalls it, "I was in Boston [during the 2000 campaign] at a rally with Harry Browne [the annual Hempfest gathering, of some 65,000 people who want to legalize marijuana]. A photographer from High Times was talking to Carla. This fellow was looking at the Advocates for Self-Government's 'Are you a Libertarian?' quiz, and said he agreed with everything on one side, but disagreed with the rest. "Carla just looked at the man and said nothing," notes Watras. "Absolutely nothing! The man walked over to me, where I was talking to his editor. I informed the gentleman that at the very least we could work together half of the time. The man agreed and said that at least I had the right attitude." All this time, he says, Howell mostly sat there and reviewed her speech-notes. When it came time for her presentation, after a rousing speech by Browne, "she went on stage and read the speech from her note cards. By far one of the worst speeches, or examples of public speaking, I have ever heard -- and I wasn't the only one to say so. She needs to speak from the heart, not from cue-cards!" Note: This writer has had a queasy feeling in his gut about the Howell Campaign, ever since I saw her performing in Anaheim in 2000, where she seemed to do nothing more than parrot whatever her Svengali campaign CEO, Michael Emerling Cloud, had written for her to say. When sidetracked onto any other matters of Liberty, she appeared neither well read nor even all that interested in learning where the holes in her awareness of the finer points of the theory might be. (I also had a personal encounter that was more than a little disturbing.) I am sorry to see my suspicions confirmed. David Euchner is another who has seen the Howell/Cloud machine up close, A former LPMA activist and congressional candidate (who has now moved out of state, at least in part to escape the tendrils of the Cloud/Howell machine), he recently posted comments on the Howell campaign(s) on a popular web discussion list. Among his issues is the same one of credibility, with an added twist: "Carla has spoken publicly about taking 'a bold approach' to advocating liberty. Essentially, she is advocating purity tests in the LPMA. The problem is who administers the test? Carla Howell and Michael Cloud. This has offended many activists: the 'moderates' don't like being called 'unlibertarian' while the purists consider Carla Howell as the least qualified to judge what makes another person a 'libertarian' (She is widely known to be poorly read on libertarian philosophy, and she only reads the speeches that Michael Cloud writes for her.)." 3. Don't spend any time building a local power base It is also hard not to notice how reliant on outside fundraising and LP News full-page ads Carla is, and these concerns are shared by her own brethren: "The real problem with the 'Small Government Act' has less to do with its support among the voters," Euchner declares, "and much more to do with how little support this initiative has among the Libertarian activists in Massachusetts. Carla has no understanding of rational self-interest. She does not realize that when she gets help from others and then does not help others in return (no matter how ridiculously small the amount of help asked of her), that the volunteers will start to catch the drift and stop helping her." In 2000, he notes, Howell campaigned throughout Massachusetts for U.S. Senate, including many campaign stops in both Euchner's congressional district and the various regions of the 18 LPMA-endorsed candidates for state legislature. "It is no exaggeration to say that she made more campaign appearances with Harry Browne than she did with the other 19 candidates for Massachusetts office combined. "Also, she flat out refused to endorse Craig Mathias for his special election [last] fall even though he is the LPMA's most decorated local officeholder, a rare libertarian who has actually won an election." [Note: The argument given was that Mathias "was not stressing gun rights" in his campaign, ignoring the fact that his taxes and education message was perfectly tailored for the upscale suburban audience in that district, while a Second Amendment focus would have either gone unnoticed or alienated many of those voters. Remember, this was a race where the candidate could actually have won, while sticking with a strictly Libertarian message. UPDATE: On January 2, 2002, Craig Mathias resigned from the LPMA State Board, and changed his registration from Libertarian to Unenrolled.] But Howell is not just reluctant to cross-promote other candidates on the campaign trail, she even balks at cooperating in the simplest precinct-level activity: "She also refused to share with us her list of lawn-sign locations from her 2000 campaign," Euchner says, "even with the understanding that we would share our list of locations for 2001 with her, and thereby increase her base of supporters for her 2002 race for Governor. Her rationale was that her information was proprietary and that she was not legally bound to divulge that information. But she missed the point: it would have been ethically correct to divulge that information to us, because we would be able to give her value-for-value." Instead, the 2001 campaigns (the most important of which was running in a district only five miles from Howell's doorstep) had to spend the time to canvass the neighborhoods and record the sign-placements, in order to request them for their own purposes.
4. If you DO have an issue to campaign on, keep it closely guarded Howell is also behind an initiative petition to eliminate the state's income tax, and has successfully attained the first step to putting the repeal issue (which she and Cloud have titled the "Small Government Act") on the November ballot. However, this has once again been achieved almost entirely on the basis of fundraising outside the state, using paid petitioners and seeking minimal input even from other local Libertarians. The effort is being backed by their own auspices (and of course "the kindness of friends"); it is neither a project of the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts, nor the vanguard of a potential statewide coalition of taxpayer groups. The announcement in July was as big a surprise to most local Libertarians as it was to those potential allies; whether or not they will now jump on the slowly rolling bandwagon is something only time will tell, but the signs are not positive. To date, there has been no real effort at building grassroots support for the cause among the state's taxpayers or their supporting groups, and a couple of those groups have already refused to back the measure. RichWatras was instrumental in digging up the research to file this petition. He did so as a loyal Libertarian Party volunteer, and hoped the results would be put to good use. He is extremely frustrated by what came out of it: "I was one of a handful of people who went through the entire Massachusetts Constitution, general laws and cherry sheets for Carla Howell. In fact, I did most of the work; the reports she was given came from my research (I was not paid for this work ... or even thanked!), and they were used to write the tax repeal petition." He says he still has the research material, and offers it "to any Libertarian candidate, for free," but he considers the use to which it is now being put as simply tragic. He confirms suspicions about the exclusivity of the campaign: "She has ignored, and even attacked, other LPers, and has done this petition with the attitude that she and only she deserves credit." He notes that when Howell was running for Senate, she had numerous chances to speak to local groups, but considered this beneath her as a candidate for federal office. [The age-old wisdom of Tip O'Neil, "All politics is local," is apparently not in the Michael Cloud handbook.] "Now," he says, "she has to justify why these people should even consider voting for her. She burns down more bridges then she builds. The tax repeal should have been a Libertarian Party initiative, focused on grassroots activism, not just the Committee for Small Government ... yet another Howell/Cloud scheme." In other words, if this continues to be what it appears to be so far -- a fundraising vehicle to support fundraising commissions, elevating people's hopes and then ending up with a 10 or 20 percent showing in favor of the measure -- it could not only devastate the Libertarian effort in that state, but hamstring the national tax reform movement as a whole. Clearly, from both a practical level and from the standpoint of teamwork, Carla Howell has chosen to shun the support and participation of her fellow Libertarians, as well as the many groups which spearheaded such tax reform measures as Proposition 2-1/2 and the recent state tax surcharge repeal. According to Watras, "I have asked Carla for a few names of people in the area I live in, to get more committees formed, and to give her an organized helping hand in Western Massachusetts. Silence was my answer." "I had a couple of town committees set up during the first stage," he says, "but I canceled the meetings, due to the attitude from the state leadership and the Howell team. I ended up forming two county committees and two town committees, instead of four county and seven town. You would think the LPMA leadership and Howell would understand what local grassroots activism can do!" (He notes that the only person within the LPMA hierarchy who has been of real use to activists is Executive Director Kamal Jain.) Frankly, anyone who has ever been involved in real politics knows that coalition-building and grassroots focus are essential if one is intent on winning. This consistently exclusionary approach, on the other hand, seems almost intentional self-sabotage, like the choice of playwright, director and star in the Mel Brooks classic, "The Producers." But then, as you know if you have seen the film or the play, a successful play was not the intention there ... 5. Let 'situation ethics' guide your every move There are multiple instances in which the Howell campaigns, past and present, have played fast and loose with accepted practices, even in the context of "politics as usual." One of the biggest concerns around both of the Howell campaigns is the role that paid fundraising plays. Rather than using a set fee to pay for professional fundraisers, regardless of the return they produce, Carla's campaigns have consistently operated through fundraising on a commission basis, averaging about 15 percent so far. This might not be so disturbing, were it not for the fact that the primary fundraiser has been and continues to be her campaign CEO, chief advisor and paramour, Michael Emerling Cloud. Much was made of the fact that Michael "excused" some $47,000 of such commissions at the end of the 2000 campaign; far less is said of the fact that he had already accepted nearly $125,000 for his services. Euchner has a theory: "Because of Michael Cloud's heavy influence on Carla, it could be that the real reason for starting this Committee for Small Government was to allow Carla to become the financial beneficiary of the LP. Cloud loves to bring up how Carla made only $8,000 in 2000 as a result of campaigning full-time for her Senate race. Well, if she takes a 15% commission on a million dollars raised for the Committee for Small Government, then she can make $150,000 for herself. She can make $300,000 if she raises two million." He goes further, noting that, "There are also rumors of financial hanky-panky surrounding her campaign for Senate in 2000. Though as libertarians we are naturally opposed to the FEC and are moved to seek repeal of all federal election laws, I cannot automatically condone all violations of those laws as good acts. There are some very good people who have worked on Howell's campaigns, but there are also a few bad apples who would trade principle for personal gain. I cannot prove any hanky-panky here, but I have seen some evidence with no rebuttal so far, which is enough to fuel rumors." Indeed, there are many questions still swirling around the financial dealings of the Howell for Senate campaign. For example, the campaign had Kay Pirello on the payroll as Volunteer Coordinator, from late 1999 through the election, paying her about $500 a week during that time. Once the campaign ended, she was immediately hired as "LPMA Volunteer Coordinator," at approximately the same salary, plus benefits. During the 2001 campaigns, she was asked on numerous occasions to help LPMA endorsed candidates in coordinating their volunteer efforts; since Craig Mathias was the only active campaign in progress at the time, this should presumably have been Pirello's main duty, but apparently she never came through. When the SGA campaign began to ramp up in August 2001, Pirello immediately left her LPMA post and returned to the Howell staff. Meanwhile, a phone call to the Howell campaign HQ phone line now featured the voicemail greeting, "Welcome to the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts." (When Euchner, who notes that "this is NOT the LPMA office phone number," contacted state party chair Eli Israel about Pirello's 'volunteer coordination' he was told she had been hired to research and enter data on elected and appointed offices throughout the state, and then contact local libertarians to encourage them to run for and fill those positions. "I have yet to see evidence that Kay called a single person," he notes. "On the other hand, I know plenty of hardcore activists who were not called.") Watras confirms this: "I had done a lot of the same work on my own for free. I was pissed when I found out that Kay was being paid for what I was already doing for free, so I stopped doing it. Kay never ever did anything [while she was employed by the LPMA], to the best of my knowledge. That money, that should have been used to help candidates, or to give Bay State voters knowledge about the state party, was wasted on a kickback. This issue was a huge screw you to all Libertarian activists in Massachusetts." [Note: The address listed for the Michael Cloud for U.S. Senate headquarters is ... Kay Pirello's home.] 6. Do NOT learn from the mistakes of others Euchner and Watras are not the only ones with criticism for the Cloud/Howell combine. George Phillies, as a Central Massachusetts Libertarian activist for the last near-decade, has seen his state party go from a decentralized cadre of activists to a closely held apparatchik clique, in a matter of a few years. He is understandably annoyed by this, but has reserved most of his response for his book-in-process, which details recent Libertarian Party history, with special emphasis on the effects the Browne/Cloud/Willis combine has had on the LP and its functions. He has allowed me a preview of the chapters that deal with the Massachusetts method, and I cite him with gratitude here. "The Howell Senate campaign in 2000," he notes, "was essentially a replication of the two Harry Browne for President outings, and there is little indication so far that either the 2002 Gubernatorial effort or the SGA referendum will be any different." Echoing Santayana, Phillies declares, "If you want to see the future, look at the past." The Senate campaign was promoted with half-truths and unfounded rumors. Claims were made that Carla would be in "a two-way race" when it was clear from the start that there would be at least four, and ultimately five, other candidates in the running. Meanwhile, rumors were spread that the incumbent, Teddy Kennedy, would for some reason deign to engage in a public debate with Howell. The odds that he would campaign particularly hard, let alone acknowledge her presence in the race, were considerably longer than you could get that the Boston Red Sox would bust through the "Curse of the Bambino" and win the World Series. Similar indications, that the Small Government Act effort will be more of the same, include the "Imagine if" approach to its publicity, as well as the "send us the money, we'll spend it wisely" approach to the whole thing. To date, there are still only a handful of people (mostly the paid staff members) actively involved in the effort; very little has been done to build either precinct-level support or coalitions with other tax-activist groups -- without which any hope of winning in November is a pipe dream. Meanwhile, the continued email fundraising campaign has been about paying bills for work already done (paid petitioners, vendors and consultants), not building a nest-egg for publicizing the effort on the local airwaves. Phillies also compares the financial nature of the campaigns, pointing to both Cloud's fundraising commissions and the payments made to Kay Pirello as Volunteer Coordinator. Cloud, he notes, made $6700 in 1999 and $76,000 in 2000 raising funds and acting as CEO for the campaign, even excluding the $47,000 he excused at the end of the effort. However, during the final six weeks up to and beyond Election Day, the campaign paid him some $18,000, while the debt he was owed increased from $25,000 to $47,000. That's $40,000 "earned" in a little less than two months, in a campaign which existed mostly on the donations of Libertarians expecting a memorable result for their generosity. As Phillies puts it, "The payment of 'fundraising commissions' by political campaigns is a controversial topic in some circles. Writing in the May, 2001 issue of the distinguished Campaigns and Elections magazine, Paul Pelletier, President of Direct Campaign Solutions, writes: 'No matter how you choose to receive your pay (monthly, weekly, cycle, in full) never agree to raise money on a percentage basis. Not only is this practice unprofessional, it is unethical ... Faith in the fundraising profession and your own work ethic is the highest priority. A fundraiser is judged primarily on his or her ethics. Without this noble calling card, you are nothing. Avoid those who think differently.'" The Cloud methodology would seem to run exactly counter to this time-honored tradition of ethical fundraisers. 7. Answer your critics with disdain ... or silence Meanwhile, Phillies points out, in addition to paying Pirello $500 a week as its Volunteer Coordinator, the campaign also made a $648.61 per month "consulting" payment to MyData Automation. But he did his research: "Comparison with the 2000 end-of-year Libertarian Party of Massachusetts (LAMA) FEC report suggests that the payment to MyData was a COBRA payment for Pirello, from previous employment. On this analysis, the pay and fringe benefits for the Volunteer Coordinator came to a shade under $28,000 for 2000." Also, many of the people and companies who fed from the Browne campaign were active participants in the Howell campaign as well. Michael Cloud did fundraising for both organizations, so his income figures become even more inflated for the period. Meanwhile, the Howell Campaign bought website hosting, not from a Massachusetts outfit but from Web Commanders, the Corona Hills, CA firm linked through its proprietor Jack Dean to the Browne effort. For web content, the Howell Campaign hired another Californian, Geoff Braun, perhaps on Dean's recommendation. And when in late 1999 they needed telemarketing, the campaign retained Jennifer Willis, another Browne staff member. Phillies also notes the national-level mixing of campaign blood: "Barbara Goushaw of Michigan, whose inspirational speech, 'Guns are a Girl's Best Friend', brought Libertarians to their feet at the 1998 National Convention, was Senior Advisor to the Howell Campaign. Goushaw's most visible contribution to the Browne 2000 effort was the 'Shut the F*** Up' campaign, a transparent attack on Browne critics. The StFU campaign demanded that critics stop their remarks on Browne's record. Goushaw was listed second on the Howell Campaign letterhead, immediately under Campaign CEO Michael Cloud. The LPMA invited Goushaw to address its 2000 convention, and paid her a speaker's fee of $775." (It would be interesting to see how Ms. Goushaw feels now, after having been essentially put in the position of a Klinton cabinet Secretary by the denials surrounding l'Affaire Willis ...) Another component of the Browne, and hence Howell, strategy was and still is a strong reliance on direct mail fundraising appeals. According to FEC filings, the campaign spent over $100,000 in postage, $165,000 for printing and $35,000 for mailing lists, in 2000 alone -- some $300K to send out all those glitzy mail-packets. The campaign raised about $730,000 during that year; if we attribute all of the money raised to the direct mail campaign, the return on investment is a respectable 2:5 to 1. It is likely, however, that a measurable portion of the money raised may have come in by other channels, since there were several large-dollar contributors from within the state, who seem unlikely to have responded to junk mail. Meanwhile, ballot access apparently came low in the campaign's priority list. It took a last-ditch infusion of some $20,000 from national LP headquarters, and a strenuous effort by both volunteers and mercenaries, to put them over the top. The cost was more than $64,000 to collect 10,000 valid signatures, or about $6.40 apiece. (Note: The campaign also received about $40,000 from the LPMA, compared to a $1500 donation to the only Congressional campaign that year, and about $100 each for the 18 state legislative candidates. This did not go unnoticed by those who were running in less visible, but far more practicable races.) The major difference between the Browne and Howell campaigns seems to be in the fact that the Howell effort actually did spend some money on advertising and targeted media marketing. Almost a quarter of the funds raised, some $190,000, went to a combination of TV, radio, newspaper and movie theater promotion. Also, the majority of the television advertising was shown on local network affiliates, as opposed to cable and UHF stations, as was the case with the little that Browne did. SUMMARY: So what can we expect? So what does this tell us about what to expect this time around? This writer suspects it will be more of the same. What has happened thus far is a bunch of full-page ads in LP News, another spate of direct mail and email appeals (always raising money for what has already been done, not building a fund for future efforts), and promises, promises, promises -- most beginning with "Just imagine if ..." There is also little or no indication that either the Gubernatorial campaign or the referendum effort is doing much if any outreach to build up the number of living, breathing and presumably voting Massachusetts citizens it will take to make either of these endeavors a success come November. There are also no real signs that Howell and Cloud have managed to get any of the other tax-activist groups on board for their quixotic tilt at the income tax windmill. (If there were, wouldn't we have heard something about them by now? It's a lot easier to "Imagine if" if there is something concrete to build that imagination upon.) Finally, Carla Howell's freight-train has never really seemed to be about getting elected to office, but has only focused on climbing the rather spurious ladder of Libertarian Party politics. Rich Watras wonders about this too: "Why she has not or did not run for State Senate, or some other attainable office, is beyond me. She has passed up many chances to use her fundraising and her name to gain a seat in the General Assembly, but she has chosen instead to do get-rich-quick schemes." It is possible to view the State Auditor run as a stratagem, designed for the visible purpose of achieving Major Party status (which according to some has slowed the progress of the LPMA, with its stricter ballot rules and party-primary requirements), but mostly crafted as a way of getting herself into the game. The Senate campaign, though it provided a step up in vote totals and some name recognition, might have been more valuable if the race were for state legislature, or even local office. And this Governor chase, with its simultaneous income tax repeal referendum, seems just another way of stepping outside the workaday world and making a living for herself and her closest compadres. If Strategy #4 works at all in furthering the cause of Liberty, neither Howell's (nor either of Harry Browne's) campaigns have thus far borne its fruit. |
