Fund-Raisers Push Envelope of Mass-Mailing Technology
Response Dynamics Inc., the slick, direct-mail house that raises millions of dollars for Rep. Robert K. Dornan and other prominent conservatives, represents the cutting edge of modern political fund raising, according to both its admirers and detractors.
“We probably mail more political mail than anybody else,” said RDI Chairman David A. Kunko. “The results are there. That’s why people come to us.”
One trade journal has ranked RDI, based in Vienna, Va., as the second biggest political direct-mail operation in the country.
But the cutting edge cuts both ways. Critics have accused RDI and its related companies of engaging in the direct-mail equivalent of churning--sponsoring “shadow” fund-raising efforts intended to benefit the fund-raiser instead of the client.
In the months before the 1988 election, RDI undertook massive direct-mail solicitations for three separate political action committees that were promoting so-called “independent expenditure” efforts to benefit George Bush, Jack Kemp and Bob Dole, the three leading GOP presidential contenders.
The most successful effort, “Americans for Bush,” was sponsored by the National Security Political Action Committee, headed by a longtime acquaintance of Kunko and his partner, RDI President Ronald A. Kanfer. NSPAC was the best-performing political action committee of the 1988 election, raising nearly $10.3 million.
But none of the money actually went to the Bush campaign, although NSPAC sponsored Bush commercials on cable television and mailed out thousands of Bush bumper stickers and yard signs. NSPAC attempted to donate $5,000, the maximum allowed by federal law, to Bush-Quayle ’88 Inc., but the campaign returned the money, a senior Bush campaign official said last week.
“There was real potential for people being misled into thinking that something called ‘Americans for Bush’ was George Bush’s committee,” said Trevor Potter, deputy general counsel of the Bush campaign committee. NSPAC “freely used George Bush’s name for something he hadn’t authorized, and . . . a number of Bush supporters and Bush contributors complained bitterly about the manner of solicitation.”
NSPAC did contribute $113,550--or 1.1% of the money it received--to other federal candidates, according to federal election records. But the bulk of the money the committee raised was spent on more fund raising, carried out by RDI. Under FEC rules, direct-mail fund-raising costs are considered expenditures on behalf of a candidate if the fund-raising letters mention the name of the candidate or his opponent.
The Bush campaign ultimately filed a complaint against NSPAC, contending that its telephone solicitations misled donors into believing that they were contributing to the Bush campaign.
The dispute was settled this month, when the Federal Election Commission fined the committee $6,000 for failing to properly report two contributions to the Bush campaign and for not including a disclaimer on Bush yard signs that it distributed.
(Ironically, Dornan said that he was a victim of an unauthorized “independent expenditure” fund-raising effort earlier this year, promoted by an organization called Citizens for Dornan. After Dornan made an angry telephone call, Citizens for Dornan closed its doors, he said.)
Kunko and Kanfer strongly deny that RDI has manipulated client committees for its own benefit.
“We have never been on the board of directors of any of our clients,” Kunko said. “We’ve never been the incorporators of any of our clients. We never suggested to any of our clients that they create themselves. None of that is true, we’ve never done that.”
In fact, the partners said NSPAC still owes them $1 million.
To offset the debt, they have been granted ownership rights to the thousands of donor names generated by the Americans for Bush effort.
As the FEC was concluding its investigation of the Bush complaint, RDI was mailing out thousands of letters, signed by President Bush, asking for money for Dornan.
