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A guide to political news, commentary and resources in Southwest Virginia

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

In defense of slush

By PRESTON BRYANT
JAN. 12, 2004

Let's get one thing straight: money is the mother's milk of politics. Everybody knows it. Especially the U.S. Supreme Court, which has affirmed on more than one occasion money's central -- even vital -- role in electioneering.

So when some Democrats jumped on their high horses last week when it was revealed that the Republican leadership in the House of Delegates had devised a "planned giving" program to smartly pool and expend campaign dollars, well, such blabber was little more than political shot-taking for the sake of it.

In case you missed it, state newspapers and other media were slipped copies of the House GOP memo detailing the sliding scale by which incumbent Republicans would contribute to a central campaign kitty. Freshmen delegates would pony up $5,000; those serving between two and eight years would contribute $10,000; those with more than eight years' service would give $20,000; committee chairs would give $30,000; and delegates holding leadership posts would ante up $40,000. Twenty-five percent of these sums would be payable to the Dominion Leadership Trust -- a political action committee established by House Speaker Bill Howell -- over a two-year period, with the remaining 75 percent doled out directly by incumbent Republican legislators to the partisan colleagues of their choice, so long as the recipients were in competitive races. If the program is carried out per the formula, then House Republicans will have about $1 million on hand for the 2005 elections.

That money is increasingly a part of state political campaigns is no secret. Politicians' grab for more and more dough really took off in the early- to mid-1990s, when minority Republicans in the House and Senate began closing the gap that for more than a century had existed between themselves and the majority party Democrats. As the GOP inched closer to parity, the competition grew fiercer and fund-raising got more intense. Big givers, especially those controlling political action committees, began hedging their bets by giving to both sides, thereby increasing exponentially the total dollars in any given campaign cycle. And there's been no looking back since.

It also was about a decade ago that a number of legislators, primarily those in leadership positions, began setting up in earnest their own political action committees. These new PACs, which were in addition to their own re-election campaign accounts, allowed delegates and senators yet another vehicle through which to raise bucks. These new PACs pushed to even greater heights the total sum of dollars expended each election season.

State Republican and Democratic officeholders have long sought to help out their fellow partisans who might have tough re-election fights on their hands. It's called teamwork, or brother helping brother.

But this is not to say that money is doled out willy-nilly from one legislative candidate to another. No, as goes with most any prudent investment, an analysis is done to determine how much, if anything, is invested in this or that campaign. Republicans and Democrats alike take a hard look at their fellow partisan candidates, assessing how hard they're working, how much money they've raised on their own, the weaknesses of the opposition, and the strength of the electoral demographics defining their districts -- and then a determination is made on the worthiness of the investment. It's not likely, for example, that a lot of Republican dollars will be spent on a Republican candidate running in a heavily Democratic district. The same would be true of Democrats running in strongly Republican constituencies.

During this past round of elections, House and Senate Republicans were faced with a well-heeled Democratic governor who, along with a number of his well-heeled friends, put in place a structure that allowed him to raise $1 million to defeat GOP legislative candidates. That's the power of the bully pulpit. While Mark Warner's Democrats picked up three seats in the House, his party lost a seat in the Senate. Republicans, though, still heavily dominate both chambers.

It's the loss of the three Republican delegates, however, that irked GOP leaders, especially Howell, a soft-spoken Stafford County gentleman whose ire gets up only when his conservative majority is threatened.

In his first round of elections since taking the speaker's chair, Howell traversed Virginia raising big bucks to help House Republicans -- more than $700,000 in all -- to offset the bigger bucks Warner was raising for Democrats. And on top of this, Howell gently urged his fellow House Republicans -- especially those facing little or no Democratic opposition -- to pour money from their campaign coffers into those of other Republicans who were in competitive races.

Many House Republicans stepped up to the plate. Others were less willing to do so for a variety of reasons. In post-Election Day reviews, it was determined that if a wee bit more money had been invested in a few competitive Republican candidates, both incumbents and challengers, then Warner may not have realized the few gains he did.

Thus, Howell and his lieutenants devised the planned giving program so that, in years hence, they'll not find themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the money game -- and won't see more slippage in the House Republican ranks.

In and of itself, Howell's fund-raising program is not a bad one. Playing offense is a good thing -- a notion certainly believed by Jess "Big Daddy" Unruh, a Democrat and California political legend in the mid- to late-20th century who uttered that truism about money being the mother's milk of politics.

The suggestion that Howell will dole out committee assignments and chairmanships based on a fellow Republican's participation in the speaker's fund-raising program is poppycock. Anyone who knows Howell certainly knows better. He's a benevolent ruler, whose velvet-gloved fist is made less of iron than tempered steel.

Money will -- and should -- flow through politics as gently as political speech from one's tongue. It's to be forever a part of our political system. Those who think otherwise are simply naïve.

Creating a central fund from which prudent, targeted investments can be made in the most critical House GOP campaigns makes a fair amount of sense. Uncoordinated spending - and crying over spilt milk -- should be a thing of the past.

If Warner can set up a structure to raise and spend $1 million against Republicans, then Republicans should be able to set up a structure to raise $1 million to defend themselves.

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