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Inside Politics
Mark Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator.

Mark Shields: Giving the 'devil' his due


WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- He has been regularly described as "too partisan," "bombastic" and "abrasive." And that's just by the man's friends.

Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe has been called much worse by published conservatives: "a political hit-man," pushing "hysterical invective" and "the sock puppet installed by Bill and Hillary Clinton to advance their personal power, income and ambitions."

The fact is that Chairman McAuliffe's critics, including this one, owe the 46-year-old party honcho an apology.

With the Republicans controlling the White House, U.S. Congress and -- the case could be made after the Florida decision that made George W. Bush president -- the Supreme Court leaving him with no "access" to Washington power to dangle, with the McCain-Feingold reform act outlawing the six-figure "soft money" donations from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions (upon which Democrats in the '90s developed a narcotic dependence) and inheriting an $18 million party debt, McAuliffe looked to be headed for the big fall so many of his critics wished for him.

In the face of those formidable obstacles, he has confounded his critics and infuriated his opponents by raising more money than any Democratic Party chairman in history.

Gone is the $18 million debt. Today, the Democratic National Committee has just under $60 million in the bank. The DNC in 2001 -- after eight years of the party holding the White House -- had a total of 400,000 direct mail donors. From January through March of this year, the DNC mailed more than 35 million fund-raising letters.

That, according to McAuliffe, is more than the party sent in "the entire decade of the 1990s." Today, the DNC has over 1.5 million direct mail contributors, a better than three-fold increase over 2000.

Compare the current cash on hand to four years ago, when the DNC had just $9.3 million that could be spent on federal campaigns and in the first six months of that year -- with Bill Clinton still president and his VP, Al Gore, the presumed nominee -- had raised $24.4 million that could be legally used in federal campaigns.

In 2004, McAuliffe and the Democratic National Committee have already raised $70 million. When Clinton secured his first presidential nomination in June 1992,the DNC then had just $1.1 million in cash.

Campaign finance authority Anthony Corrado of Colby College and the Brookings Institution points out the importance of these numbers in the real political world: "In 2000,Al Gore did not run a single TV ad from March until after the Democratic convention in August." The Bush-Cheney campaign during that five-month period "owned" the airwaves.

This year, Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts because he has been able to raise a record $180 million has been competitive with the Republicans.

But once Kerry on July 29 at the Boston convention becomes the official nominee, he will be limited to spending from then until Election Day only from the $75 million public financing he and George W. Bush will each receive. From July 29 until Bush is officially nominated on September 2 in New York, the Bush-Cheney campaign -- with no restrictions -- will be able to spend heavily on anti-Kerry TV ads.

But, as Corrado notes, with the party's new deep pockets, Kerry will not have to unilaterally disarm and McAuliffe's DNC should be able to go toe-to-toe with the GOP during August.

Not known for his humility, the tireless Terry McAuliffe -- who spends five hours a day, six days a week, making personal calls to potential donors -- refuses to take bows for his DNC success.

Does George W. Bush deserve some credit for that success? "The president qualifies as the co-chairman, maybe even the chairman, of all Democratic fund-raising in 2004," he answers.

Then McAuliffe adds: "It's really the perfect storm for fund-raising: We have a great nominee and Democrats' visceral dislike of the incumbent president's policies."

After the record he has compiled on his own, he may still be called "too partisan" or "bombastic" or "abrasive," but nobody can call Terry McAuliffe anybody's "sock puppet." He deserves to be called Mr. Chairman.


Click here for more from Creators Syndicate.

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