What was plan B?
Plan B was — was there a legal way to run advertisements that would be helpful in the legislative debate and by inference clearly helpful to the President’s reelection that was legal? The answer was, yes, there was. It’s in the form of the issue ads which could be financed, not solely, but in some measure by soft money. The key decision was made then in September of 1995 to go forward. The question was — could we raise the money that was going to be needed and spent at the rate of roughly a minimum of a million and often ranging up into $1.5 to $1.8 million a week? Week after week after week through the general election. What did the President say when you told him you’d have to raise, it would cost that much money, $600,000 to a $1.5 million a week to run these ads? What was his reaction? He said, can we raise it? I said, we can raise it. The only way we can raise it, Mr. President, is if you’re going to devote a considerable amount of time and if the Vice President is going to devo
