Out-of-staters lining candidates’ coffers

WASHINGTON — Republican Jim DeMint has raised $12,000 from the owner of a chicken-processing company with plants in Arkansas, Delaware and North Carolina. Democrat Inez Tenenbaum has collected at least $8,000 from employees of the New York Yankees’ cable channel and their relatives.

Those contributors are but a few examples of the hundreds of out-of-staters who have given money to both major party candidates for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina.

Most of those who have donated to the candidates’ Senate campaigns call South Carolina home. But the most recent campaign finance reports show about 20 percent of DeMint’s contributions and 27 percent of Tenenbaum’s donations came from people and groups who do not live within the Palmetto State.

“That outside money is likely to increase if this race stays close and the parties continue to emphasize that this race is one to pay attention to,” said Steve Weiss, spokesman for the Washington-based, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

“There aren’t many competitive Senate races out there, and the ones that are will get much of the attention from donors.”

A survey of professional election-raters — those who study candidates and voters — finds that most characterize the U.S. Senate race in South Carolina as either a “tossup” or “leaning Republican.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Washington group charged with electing as many GOP senators as possible, is focusing on 11 races this year. South Carolina is high on that list. The group’s counterpart, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has identified races in seven states it considers highly winnable: Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Each committee has given its S.C. favorite the maximum direct contribution — $34,000.

But they — and other non-South Carolinians — say more financial help is on the way for DeMint and Tenenbaum.

That means outsiders are playing a key role in South Carolina’s U.S. Senate race. The question is: Is it too big a role?

OUTSIDE INFLUENCE

Former Washington lobbyist David Rudd, a Camden native, began helping Tenenbaum meet potentially helpful people even before he was named executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in February.

“I realized that there were plenty of South Carolinians in Washington who didn’t know her,” Rudd said.

Rudd arranged a reception for Tenenbaum and 30 to 40 South Carolinians who live in Washington.

Since Rudd left his lobbying firm and took over operations at the Democratic campaign committee, he has made it his job to introduce Tenenbaum, the S.C. superintendent of education, to others — and not necessarily South Carolinians — who could boost her campaign.

“You have these road shows where you take a few candidates to New York to meet people. You take them to big cities around the country where you basically have fund-raising bases — Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago — and you hope they hit it off.”

Such trips seem to have paid off from Tenenbaum.

DeMint campaign staffers point out New York is one of Tenenbaum’s top five metro areas when it comes to her donors. It ranks fourth, with more than $110,750 in donations as of June 30. At $51,000, Atlanta is No. 5 on the donor list for Tenenbaum, a Georgia native.

“You can tell a lot about someone by the people she associates with,” said DeMint campaign spokesman Terry Sullivan. The implication: The New Yorkers and Atlantans who contribute to Tenenbaum are looking out for their interests, not South Carolina’s.

But Tenenbaum said she is not simply taking money from Big Apple strangers.

“I have cousins in New York,” she said. “We have friends in New York who invited friends of theirs to meet me. There is a network of people around the country who will help you if you can tap into someone in the area.”

Tenenbaum added that DeMint has had his share of Washington fund-raisers.

With $74,799 of contributions, metro Washington is the one out-of-state locale that made DeMint’s top-five donor areas.

The Tenenbaum campaign has a name for Washingtonians who have helped DeMint: his “Beltway Buddies.”

Their prime example is “Americans for Job Security,” a Washington-based group partially funded by insurance companies that has run ads against Tenenbaum in South Carolina.

Tenenbaum places the Washington-based Club for Growth and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — both DeMint supporters — into this same ideologically-driven, outsider category.

DeMint campaign spokesman Terry Sullivan said the campaign is proud to have those two groups’ support. Like DeMint, he said, they understand how to improve the economy.

Sullivan said Tenenbaum is the one taking money from ideological outsiders. He notes Emily’s List, the Washington-based group that gives only to Democratic women who support abortion rights, has given Tenenbaum more than $400,000.

“It’s not an ideological organization,” Tenenbaum said. “It’s a group that supports women candidates who happen to be pro-choice, as I think most women in South Carolina are.”

EXPENSIVE ELECTION

As the Democratic committee is helping Tenenbaum, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign is helping DeMint.

The group set up a “unity account” and helped raise $90,000 for whichever GOP candidate — DeMint it turns out — won the GOP’s June Republican primary.

Dan Allen, a spokesman for the Republican committee, said it has sent its chairman, U.S. Sen. George Allen of Virginia, to South Carolina three times this year for fund-raisers.

No other state has received more visits.

And, as of June 30, the Republican committee was sitting on $19.1 million it can use to help candidates across the country, compared to $15.5 million in the Democrats’ Senate account.

Part of that money — how much has not been tabulated in either camp, according to party insiders — will go into South Carolina’s Senate race for indirect spending on behalf of the candidate but not coordinated with them.

That will supplement already hefty totals for DeMint vs. Tenenbaum, which is shaping up to be the most expensive election in S.C. history. If it has not yet, it is sure to surpass the collective $10 million Democrat Alex Sanders and now-U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spent on their campaigns in 2002.

DeMint had raised nearly $5 million through June 30 and has raised an additional $1.5 million since his GOP runoff victory, according to his campaign. Tenenbaum had raised more than $3 million through June 30 and has raised much more since, said campaign spokesman Kay Packett, who would not provide exact numbers.

“Campaigns have become so expensive,” said Stephen Hess, an elections expert at Washington’s Brookings Institution. That’s why candidates today are forced to look outside their states to raise money, he said.

“You’re talking about much more sophisticated techniques for raising money, everything from the development of a professional class of fund-raising consultants to the use of the Internet.”

But is “outside money” an inherently bad thing? Does it establish unsavory relationships between politicians and non-constituents?

In a perfect world, Hess said, “it’s nice to think that candidates would limit themselves to their own voters.” But it is also the case that “outsiders” generally give to candidates who share their point of view, he said.

To Weiss, whose organization was founded to track money in politics, out-of-state money is not an inherently bad thing.

“But contributions are given with the idea of currying favor with elected officials,” Weiss said. “They are hoping to get something later on — at a minimum, access.

“So it’s important for voters to know who is giving to whom.”

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com