Back in the Game: Political Party Campaigning in an Era of Reform

Chapter 5: A Complex Game

FIVE A ComplEx GAmE In the previous chapter, we looked at the dilemma faced by political parties as they decide whether or not to make direct contributions to candidates. The crux of the dilemma is whether they should make direct contributions to no one (given the relatively small amounts involved) or everyone (given the fact that it would not be hard or costly to give them to all candidates). In the end, political parties fall somewhere in between, giving direct contributions mostly to candidates in competitive races, but also to some incumbents and open-seat candidates beyond what these candidates would expect based on the competitiveness of their races. Political parties also face this question—to give or not to give—as they contemplate making coordinated expenditures during a campaign. In many ways, the strategic decision faced by political parties with respect to coordinated expenditures is similar to that for direct contributions —so similar that many scholars consider both forms of support simultaneously (as a sum) when discussing political party resource allocation (e.g., Glasgow 2002; Damore and Hansford 1999; Herrnson 1989; Jacobson 1985–1986). And there are good reasons to think of direct contributions and coordinated expenditures as quite similar. First, both must be made with scarce hard dollar funds raised by the political parties. Second, both are subject to strict limits as to how much the political party can devote to a particular candidate, though the coordinated expenditure limits are much higher (more on this below). And third, by making a direct contribution or a coordinated expenditure, the political party loses the ability to make a completely independent decision on how to spend the money in order to influence the election. This third fact in particular poses an interesting puzzle for political parties when deciding how to allocate resources, a puzzle that is much more significant in the case of coordinated expenditures than it is for direct contributions , if only because the latter tend to be in much smaller amounts 87 88 BACK IN THE GAME and often made more for the signal the contributions makes to others than for the impact of the dollars themselves. Coordinated expenditures can be a more significant source of candidate support. But first, let’s consider exactly what coordinated expenditures are. Coordinated expenditures were established in the Federal Election Campaign Act as a means to strengthen the relationship between political parties and their candidates (Kolodny 1998). To that end, national and state parties are allowed to make “special expenditures in connection with the general election campaigns of federal candidates” (Federal Election Commission 2009a, 43) beyond the standard (direct) contribution that a political party can give to candidates. As a result, political parties were simultaneously able to improve their connection to increasingly independent candidates while augmenting their ability to influence election outcomes. But these “special” expenditures came with limits. Most notably, the FECA established the maximum coordinated expenditure a political party could make for a candidate in the 1974 election cycle: ten thousand dollars for House candidates or two cents times the voting-age population for Senate candidates, House candidates in states with only one representative ,1 and presidential candidates. These limits would also be indexed for inflation.2 In addition, coordinated expenditures were limited to supporting general election candidates. Further, several restrictions were created regulating which political parties could support various types of candidates. Only a political party’s national committee could make coordinated expenditures on behalf of a presidential candidate. The national committee could also make coordinated expenditures on behalf of House and Senate candidates, as could state political parties for House and Senate candidates in their own states. Local political party organizations as well as the parties’ congressional campaign committees had no independent authority to make coordinated expenditures (Federal Election Commission 2009a). Despite the limits, the coordinated expenditures created by the FECA became an important source of party support for candidates because of their being indexed to inflation, unlike direct contributions (La Raja 2008). Yet this form of candidate support creates a tension for the political party. On the one hand, making coordinated expenditures yields many benefits for the party. It helps the party provide support to its candidates, a function clearly central to parties as organizations designed to help ambitious politicians win elective office (Aldrich 1995). Coordinated expenditures also allow the political party some control over how the funds are spent; unlike direct contributions that force the political party to trust the candidate to spend the money in a...