Maine Policy Review Volume 23 | Issue 2 2014 Ten Comparisons, Then and Now Angus King U.S. Senate Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr Recommended Citation King, Angus. "Ten Comparisons, Then and Now." Maine Policy Review 23.2 (2014) : 27 -35, https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol23/iss2/6. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. POLITICS THEN AND NOW: Ten Comparisons Ten Comparisons, Then and Now by Angus King was sworn in as a U.S. senator 40 years to the day after Massachusetts has a larger population than Maine’s, but I I went to work as a staff member in the U.S. Senate, it’s not that much larger. Today, to run for reelection in on January 3, 1973. So, I have an interesting perspec- a competitive state, the average U.S. senator needs to tive on politics then and now from having worked for raise between $8,000 and $10,000 a day, every day, 365 Senator Bill Hathaway of Maine in his 1972 campaign; days a year, for six years. then going to work for him in Washington; and now, Think for a minute: $10,000 a day, every day, seven unexpectedly, finding myself back there 40 years later. I days a week. You very quickly run out of friends and would like to share with you some comparisons between family. Where does all that money come from? politics then and now. Unfortunately, it tends to come from people who are interested in what you are doing. I remember former MONEY Congressman Barney Frank saying a few years ago, with typical wit,“We have the only political system in the ill Hathaway’s campaign in 1972 was the most history of the world where perfect strangers are expected Bexpensive campaign ever run in Maine to that point, to give you large sums of money and not expect and it cost $212,000. My campaign last year cost $3 anything in return!” million, and it was the cheapest winning campaign in It is a scandal waiting to happen. It’s a real problem, the United States. In fact, a friend from Washington not only in terms of the amounts involved and where called during the campaign and asked, “What’s your you get it, but also in terms of how much time it takes. budget?” I said, “Well, about three million dollars.” He I see my colleagues who are up for reelection next year, replied, “What a quaint number!” who are spending hours and hours every day on the Money has become a huge problem in American telephone, asking for money. On top of this, we have politics, huge because there is an insatiable demand for this terrible case, where people can give all this money it. My campaign cost three million. There was probably anonymously. It’s one thing if you know where it’s another million and a half or two spent on my behalf coming from, but now there’s no way to know. by outsiders, and then there was six or seven million The six or seven million that was spent against me? spent against me. Do you remember the ads with the Nobody knows who gave that money. The U.S. Chamber little crown on my head? My granddaughter loved of Commerce was at the bottom of the “crown” ad, but those ads. She said, “Look, there’s granddad with a we don’t know where they got the several million they crown on.” She thought it was really cute; she didn’t spent. I believe it was Senator John McCain of Arizona know they were spending millions of dollars to assassi- who said that they had become kind of an identity- nate my character. laundering organization, and I think that’s a real I think we have a good measure of what all that problem. spending was worth. When I ran for governor in 1998, In the Citizens United decision, the Supreme I got 59 percent of the vote; this time I got 53 percent. Court invited Congress to require disclosure. Congress They spent $6 million on negative ads. I figure they hasn’t done it yet, but it’s something we should do. You spent a million dollars a percentage point to take me cannot go to a Maine town meeting with a bag over your from 59 to 53 percent. That’s a rough figure for what it head. You have to say, here’s who I am, here’s what I was worth. I’m just glad they didn’t spend $50 million. believe, and here’s who I am contributing to. Here’s the problem. I spent three million, and We in Maine, in New Mexico, in California, and there was probably ten million spent in total. In everywhere, are being battered by these advertisements, Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Warren was running without any idea of who’s behind them. There are no against Scott Brown, the expenditures were $42 million limits. It can be a single person with millions and apiece. That’s $42 million on each campaign. millions of dollars. In 2012, one man backing Newt View current & previous issues of MPR at: digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/ Volume 23, Number 2 MAINE POLICY REVIEW 27 POLITICS THEN AND NOW: Ten Comparisons Gingrich for president wrote a check for well more than their polling numbers are down.” Then I heard, “Well, ten million dollars—one person. That’s not good for our the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the business democracy. So that’s a big difference between politics community are not going to contribute to the then and now; $10,000 a day—just think of that. Republicans, and that will shape them up.” No! If you’re from one of those safe Republican districts in Georgia, GERRYMANDERING THE U.S. or Ohio, or Wisconsin, or Tennessee, you don’t care HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES about these national polls. All you care about is your district, and in that district, you were being cheered for errymandering is a term that dates back to Governor closing down the government. That’s what they went GElbridge Gerry of Massachusetts in the early nine- there to do. teenth century. It refers to the purposeful drawing of I talked to one writer who said she had talked to election districts to exclude certain voters and include some of the Tea Party Republicans, and the calls from others, so these become “safe” districts for the party in their districts during the shutdown were ten-to-one in power. favor. Do you see what I mean? It’s why the House didn’t Half or more of the House districts today have been care about the polls. What happens nationally doesn’t gerrymandered to the point where they are politically really matter, if your base is that district. It can work safe seats. This means that the primary election in that both ways, but right now it’s working more on the district is the election. If you win the Republican Republican side that is so one-sided. It’s the reason that primary in a Republican-drawn district, you are going to things have pulled so far apart. It’s why the House didn’t be the congressperson. There’s no contest. The Democrat care about the polls. doesn’t have a prayer because the lines have been drawn in such a way that it’s going to be 60 or 70 percent THE CENTER-LESS U.S. SENATE Republican, and vice versa. And by the way, there are safe Democratic districts, too. n 1972, when I was working for Bill Hathaway, there This means that the person who runs in the primary Iwas an ideological spectrum across the Senate as a is vulnerable only to somebody running on their flank. body (extending both arms). Among the Democrats, If you’re in a Republican district and running in a you had Teddy Kennedy on the left and John Stennis, Republican primary, there’s always the threat of some- a Democrat from Mississippi and the long-time chair body running who’s going to be more conservative than of the Armed Services Committee, on the right of you, and you’re pushed to the right. By the same token, the party. On the Republican side, you had Barry for the Democrat, you’re being pushed to be more Goldwater on the right and Jacob Javits of New York, a liberal. So, it is the extreme activists who control the Republican who was way more liberal than Stennis, on primaries, and in many places, unfortunately, not many the left of the party. There were about 20 people in a people vote in the primaries. broad, middle category, who were liberal-to-moderate- Last summer [2013], when I was running in Maine, leaning Republicans and conservative-to-liberal-leaning the Republicans nominated Charlie Summers with just Democrats. There was considerable overlap, you see, at 13 percent of the registered Republican vote. The the center. Democrats nominated Cynthia Dill with just 9 percent Today it’s like this: there is, literally, no overlap. of the registered Democratic vote. If you do the math, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John it’s like 1 or 2 percent of the people of Maine who nomi- McCain of Arizona (sometimes) are over on the more nated the two major party candidates. The activists in moderate side of the Republican Party.