Category Archives: Campaign finance

Bruce’s Worst Investment, and Other Gleanings from Campaign Finance Day

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So, finally, we get our second window into the money game behind the primary campaigns. A few toplines:

— Bruce Lisman is spending gobs of cash and getting bupkis in return

— Phil Scott’s chugging along; will have to pick up the pace after the primary

— Sue Minter pulls ahead in the Democratic fundraising game

— Matt Dunne’s early momentum slows a bit

— Peter Galbraith is keeping his own campaign alive. Barely

And now, the details.

Wall Street millionaire Bruce Lisman has put $1.6 million of his own money into his campaign, raised precious little money from others, and has been spending at a blistering pace. He’s raised more than $1.8 million, but he has less than $200,000 cash on hand.

Well, he can always write more checks.

But let’s stop for a moment and savor the fact that Bruce Lisman has already spent more money than any gubernatorial candidate in Vermont history — and the primary is still three and a half weeks away. And he places dismally in the available polls.

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Phil Scott’s snowbird treasurer

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Yesterday I brought you the curious conundrum of Peter Galbraith’s campaign treasurer: Roger Allbee, lifelong Republican and a member of Jim Douglas’ cabinet. Well, today we’ve got another interesting entry in the category.

For each of his candidacies for lieutenant governor and his current bid for governor, Phil Scott has had the same campaign treasurer: Glen Wright, CPA and former executive at giant accounting firm KPMG.

(Yes, the same KPMG that in 2005 admitted criminal wrongdoing in establishing fraudulent tax shelters to help rich clients dodge taxes.)

(Yes, the same KPMG that ran a tax-avoidance scheme in Canada for “high net worth” clients.)

(Yes, the same KPMG that was caught up in a 2013 insider trading scandal in which a senior partner used information gleaned from the firm’s audits of corporate clients to make a bundle on the stock market.)

(Yes, the same KPMG that served as external auditor for the scandal-plagued FIFA, and somehow missed all the signs of massive financial wrongdoing.)

Yes, the same KPMG that saw four senior partners arrested in Northern Ireland last fall on tax evasion charges.)

(And just for kicks, sex scandal.)

I digress, but boy, was it fun.

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Bernie Lite

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Matt Dunne’s first TV commercial is bursting with energy. Upbeat music plays as the candidate faces directly into the camera, and claims the mantle of Bernie Sanders like Linus clutching his security blanket.

What Bernie Sanders started, we need to finish. This campaign is about making Bernie’s vision a reality right here in Vermont.

And then he talks up what may be the least impactful part of Bernie’s vision — a ban on corporate campaign contributions.

Corporations are not people, and they shouldn’t be allowed to buy elections anymore. As Governor, the first thing I’ll do is ban corporate money from politics once and for all.

And, err, that’s it.

I mean, it’s nice and all, but the first thing? Really?

(Also, he can’t do it first thing on his own. He’ll need to convince the Legislature.)

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Berniesourcing

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Just call him Mr. Moneybags.

Rep. Chris Pearson, candidate for State Senate, suddenly finds himself with a $60,000 war chest — thanks to Bernie Sanders.

Yes, the second wave of the Political Revolution is here, and it’s a tsunami of campaign cash, courtesy of Bernie’s unmatched network of small donors. This, folks, is a Big Biden Deal.

On Tuesday, Sanders posted a list of eight candidates for state legislature. Pearson was one of them. Anyone making a contribution through that webpage would see their money split nine ways — one share for each candidate and a ninth for Sanders.

As Seven Days’ Paul Heintz reports, in a matter of hours Pearson had received $30,000. That’s now doubled to $60,000. And it comes from an incredible 12,185 individual donations — or about two-fifty apiece.

What this means for Pearson is that he won’t have to go begging for money. He’s already got 50 percent more than he thought he needed for the entire campaign.

Just from Bernie. In less than four days.

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Chris Pearson gets a big assist

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The Democratic race for six Senate nominations in Chittenden County will be an all-out affair, with two vacancies in a district that tends to automatically re-elect incumbents. But State Rep. Chris Pearson, the Progressive hopeful, just got a big dose of good news.

(Note: Hallenbeck later issued a correction. It’s eight candidates, not seven.)

Yep, Bernie is starting to open his fundraising apparatus to more candidates — which is the best way for him to build a progressive movement.

In a crowded Democratic primary that could get expensive, this makes Pearson a front-runner. Because “expensive” by Vermont standards is “piddling” almost anywhere else.

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Corporate cash: a marginally relevant issue

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A single issue dominated the Democratic gubernatorial race this past week. It’s an issue that’s way, way, waaaaaay down on my priority list for this campaign.

Corporate contributions.

I know, I know, “corporate” has become synonymous with “evil” in Vermont liberal circles, and “corporate contributions” synonymous with “evil money in politics.” Let me explain, please.

There is a severe problem with money in American politics. Some of this is corporate, a lot of it comes from the pockets of our richest citizens. Bernie Sanders has made campaign finance reform one of the centerpieces of his presidential campaign, and I applaud him for that.

Vermont, however, is a different story.

There is precious little corporate cash in our politics. Look: When Dunne returned his corporate contributions, he lost $16,000. That’s a drop in the bucket; he’s raised more than half a million dollars for his campaign. Minter is now returning $11,000 to corporate donors; her warchest is also somewhere north of a half million.

I do believe there’s too much money in Vermont politics, but there are at least three items that concern me more than corporate largesse.

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A Confederacy of Consultancies

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When last we met, I was exploring Bruce Lisman’s campaign finance filing from March 15, trying to figure out how he managed to spend nearly $600,000 before the race has really even started.

In my previous post, I looked at how much money Lisman is paying his campaign manager Shawn Shouldice*, who’s a very experienced lobbyist (on behalf of big business, mostly) but has never run a campaign before, as far as I can tell.

*spoiler: it’s a LOT.

This time, we’ll explore the bewildering array of consultancies that have hitched themselves to the Lisman gravy train. There are so many different firms, that I wonder how their efforts can possibly be coordinated.

Or, to put it another way, how much money is being squandered by Lisman, currently standing at a brisk four percent in the polls. But first, a brief note about media spending.

As of March 15, Lisman for Governor had spent an astounding $82,242 on TV ad time, which is more than many campaigns spend in an entire cycle. The bulk of that money went to WCAX-TV ($38,080) and Comcast ($32,937). WPTZ was a distant third with $11,225. Lisman also spent $11,475 for online advertising and a measly $3,000 or so on radio.

Add it all up, that’s close to 100 G’s on media. Before March 15, for Pete’s sake! Which doesn’t include production costs — and Lisman, as we shall see below, hired a top-of-the-line conservative production firm to produce his ads.

Okay, back to the consultancies. There are roughly a dozen outfits that have each taken thousands from the Lisman campaign for “consulting” and such-like.

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All aboard the Bruce Lisman gravy train

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(or, How to Spend 600 G’s Without Really Trying)

The year 2012 brought forth a pair of shameless hucksters political consultants cashing in on conservatives with more money than sense. There was Randy Brock, who lost by 20 points to Shumlin and, in the process, spent $100,000 on campaign “manager” Darcie Johnston.

And lest we forget Lenore Broughton, Montgomery Ward heiress and would-be conservative game-changer. Her right-hand man, Tayt Brooks, squandered more than a million Broughton Bucks in a fruitless effort to influence the 2012 election through the “grass root” (singular) organization Vermonters First. Once bitten, twice shy; Broughton has barely been a factor in Vermont politics since then.

This year brings a new entrant into the Vermont Conservative Consultancy Hall of Shameless: Shawn Shouldice, chief of Capital Connections, the notorious black-hat lobbying shop. She’s attached herself, limpet-like, to the political underside of Bruce Lisman, and she’s milking that cash cow for all it’s worth. (Pardon mixed metaphor.)

Shouldice makes a very good living as an advocate for some of our biggest and dirtiest business groups. Her client list includes the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association. Shouldice was also the PR arm of Lisman’s vanity project advocacy group Campaign for Vermont.

Last fall, she stepped away from active lobbying to become the campaign manager of Lisman for Governor. Her salary, according to my reading of the latest campaign finance data: $14,500 per month. On an annual basis, that’s $174,000.

Good Lord.

Now, Shouldice is an experienced lobbyist and advocate. But she is, as one observer put it, “a newbie to campaign management.”

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Bernie Bucks found in archconservative pockets

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Found a disturbing little factoid while trolling the Internet this evening.

I came across a Politico piece about Bernie Sanders’ campaign spending reports. Surprise, surprise: he spends a lot of money for those big hairy rallies, as well as the usual stuff of big-time campaigns — staff, consultants, polling, and…

… food.

Prepare yourself. Here comes the shocker.

One area where Sanders wasn’t very spendthrift was catering. His February campaign bill was only about $49,000 on catering, including about $620 on Chick-fil-A, $1,140 on Subway and $1088 on Panera Bread.

Wait wait wait. Did they just say… Chick-fil-A?

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Senate Tweaks Doomed Program

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Well, huzzah. The State Senate has approved a change in the public financing law. Currently, a candidate who wants public financing has to wait until February 15 to say or do anything campaign-related. Given the current fashion in extra-early campaign launches, that’s a significant handicap.

Tne new bill would start the clock “as soon as a privately financed candidate raised or spent up to $2,000 on a gubernatorial or lieutenant gubernatorial campaign — up to one year before Election Day,” reports Seven Days’ Paul Heintz.

This solves the too-late problem without ensuring ever-earlier campaign launches. Good idea.

However, it’s quickly becoming apparent that the deadline is far from the biggest problem with the public financing system. The biggest problem is the skyrocketing cost of statewide campaigns and the paltry sums on offer through the public funding system.

Currently, a gubernatorial hopeful who earns enough small donations gets to (a) keep that money and (b) get enough public dollars to bring their campaign total to $450,000. For lieutenant governor, the figure is $200,000.

And those are absolute limits. Not a penny more, from any source. Not even a mention in a party’s email blast.

These days, that’s simply not enough to support a competitive campaign.

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