Is public financing pretty much dead for presidential campaigns?
I think it is. I’ll tell you a story. I can remember in ’88, Bush One [George H.W. Bush] named Bob Mosbacher to be his treasurer of the campaign to run for president. And Bob came in to see me one day. And he was very panicky, because a guy who was the head of fundraising for [Michael] Dukakis was a really bright guy, Bob Farmer. And Farmer had somehow figured out that they could raise money in hunks of $100,000 at a time. At that time the biggest contributor to the Republican National Committee was a “Republican Eagle,” and it was $10,000. That was the max. And Farmer had created this, and apparently it was legal. The lawyers were saying it was legal the way it was being done. And so even though he was far ahead in the polls, Bush decided he wanted to do it. And I argued very vehemently against it. I said, “Just the appearance of it just bothers me.” But that was the campaign. They had the right to do what they wanted to, and they went ahead and did it. But that was sort of, in my min
