Oiling the wheels of U.S. politics

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 18

Oiling the wheels of U.S. politics

By

MICHAEL GELB,

of Reuter, in Washington

If Americans are not careful, United States liberals claim, their classrooms will be invaded by Right-wing "thought police” and their courts run by judges screened for religious purity.

The nightmare for conservatives, on the other hand, has universities full of Marxist professors and foreign radicals preaching socialist revolution while Nicaraguan troops fight their way towards the United States border.

These apocalyptic messages have gone out to tens of thousands of Americans recently, typical examples of the directmail efforts that now raise millions of dollars every year for political candidates and causes in America.

With congressional elections set for November, and manoeuvring under way for the 1988 presidential nominations, political fund-raising is once again in one of its hot cycles.

The darker the vision, fundraising experts say, the more likely it is that worried citizens will pull out their chequebooks in hopes of helping their political favourites to hold the line.

Experts say that direct mail is like any advertising campaign in which hyperbole is used to get the customer’s attention.

"You almost invariably have to set up a devil or a problem to solve. That’s why it has such a ’sky is falling’ slant,” says Roger Craver, whose firm handles direct-mail fund-raising for a number of liberal and Democratic Party groups.

Mail appeals are now the biggest single source of money for both of the main United States political parties, as well as for conservative and liberal groups outside the party structures.

The millions of dollars raised come costly in small donations from average citizens. Experts say the approach is

simple: identify likely donors and deluge them with mail that touches an emotional chord; but building a good mailing list is complicated and costly. The first step is a test-mailing of up to 100,000 letters costing as much as 50 cents apiece. If successful, this will break even and, at most, bring money from 2 or 3 per cent of the recipients. Once potential donors are identified their names go on a permanent list of those who get appeals once a month or more. These so-called “house lists” of contributors are said to produce returns from about 15 per cent of recipients in the most fruitful campaigns and bring in about a dollar for each 20 cents in expenses. The most successful appeals, specialists say, tend to focus on emotional issues that can be presented in simple terms, such as abortion or school prayer.

“You need populist issues to raise money — issues that people can understand in five or 10 seconds,” says Richard Viguerie, top fund-raiser of the arch-con-servative New Right.

Mr Viguerie, widely credited with refining direct-mailing technique to its current state, says contributions rise when sharp liberal-conservative clashes are highlighted in the press. President Jimmy Carter’s 1978 treaty ceding the Panama Canal to Panama was a big moneyraiser for conservative groups who claimed he was giving away a symbol of American pride. Fund-raising fell last year after President Reagan’s landslide 1984 re-election victory, partly because his soothing personality lowered emotions on both political extremes, Mr Viguerie says. He predicts that this year’s bitter debate over issues such as President Reagan’s proposal to resume military aid to Nicaraguan rebels might reopen some wallets on both sides.

Right-wing fund-raising has also suffered, some analysts say, because President Reagan’s sweeping election victories have lulled conservatives who once feared liberal Democrats were leading the country down the road of moral and political decay.

“Reagan won 49 (of 50) states in 1984, so it’s hard for some conservatives to see a threat,” says a Democratic. Party strategist, Mark Johnson. "In fundraising, you often become a victim of your own political success.” Experts say public figures who evoke a strong emotional response help bring in the money. James Watt, President Reagan’s former Interior Secretary, did a back-handed favour for environmental groups whose treasuries swelled with donations from those afraid he might open national parks to developers’ bulldozers. “There is a tendency to give against rather than for,” says a financier, Steve Winchell, for whom certain famous liberals are as good as magnets for conservative donations. “As a Republican fund-raiser, I regret the retirement of (House of Representatives Speaker) Tip O’Neill and I’m bitterly disappointed that (Senator) Ted Kennedy isn’t going to run for President,” he said.