Frank Spent Almost $1.3 Million in Re-Election Bid
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 – Rep. Barney Frank spent almost $1.3 million in his 2004 reelection campaign, more than nine times as much as his opponent spent, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
He also donated about a fifth of what he raised to other Democratic candidates for Congress.
Rep. Frank defeated Charles A. Morse, a conservative Brookline entrepreneur who ran as an independent, winning 78 percent of the vote.
Mr. Morse said he was unaware what Rep. Frank spent on his campaign and that he believed it was uncommon for the congressman to spend a lot on a campaign.
“I didn’t realize that he spent more than a million dollars, my goodness,” he said.
Mr. Morse said he was not “sure if that was a result of [his] candidacy or if it might have been more likely the result of [Rep. Frank’s] senatorial ambitions.”
Steven Weiss, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, said Rep. Frank’s expenditures “would correlate with aspirations to be senator depending on how he was spending it.”
“It’s certainly possible that he spent more prior to the 2004 election in anticipation that Senate seat might be open and certainly he and other members of the Massachusetts delegation had that possible vacancy on their minds,” Weiss added.
Had Sen. John Kerry won the presidential race in November, Massachusetts voters would have filled his Senate seat in a special election early this year.
Rep. Frank said he used television ads for the fist time since 1982 because he “was trying to run up a nice big win because of the possibility of the Senate.” He also said the television ads served a “dual purpose” because they would have boosted his name recognition for a Senate run. “If John Kerry had become president I would have been running for the Senate,” he said. Rep. Frank said he donated more money to Democrats running for Congress than he has in the past because he was serving as the senior Democrat on a committee for the first time.
His most closely contested race came in 1982, after Massachusetts lost a House seat through reapportionment following the 1980 census. Reps. Frank and Margaret Heckler were pitted against one another for a single seat. Rep. Frank won with 60 percent of the vote, defeating the Republican congresswoman who had been in office since 1966.
“I thought getting into it that Frank was vulnerable only because he hadn’t had a vigorous opponent in a quarter century,” Mr. Morse said. “My ideas and aspiration resonate with more people now. I think he’s really of the past. He’s this old, antiquated, regressive, big-government Democrat idea.”
Rep . Frank, who has been in office since 1980, spent $471,381 in 2000, winning 75 percent of the vote. Republican Martin Douglas Travis garnered 21 percent and Libertarian David J. Euchner received 4 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Rep. Frank was uncontested in 2002, spending $476,688 on his campaign, according to filings with the FEC.
The congressman raised more than $1.3 million for his 2004 reelection campaign and spent most of it. He received 1,901 in individual contributions totaling $745,470 and accounting for 56.5 percent of his fundraising, according to filings with the FEC and the Center for Responsive Politics
Rep . Frank, the senior Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, received more than $566,400 from political action committees (PACs), with business PACs accounting for 78.4 percent, according to the center.
Top contributions to Rep. Frank’s campaign included $12,500 from JP Morgan Chase & Co., $11,500 from Wells Fargo and $10,000 from Bank of America, according to the center.
Rep. Frank collected $218,142 in out-of-state contributions for 2003-2004, the fourth- highest in the Massachusetts delegation, according to the center. He received contributions from states as far away as Alaska and California and as close as Connecticut and New York, according to filings with the FEC.
Rep. Frank contributed almost $243,000 to the campaigns of other Democrats and spent the majority of his campaign money on advertising.
His largest expenditure was $408,919 on media assistance with Yellin/McCarron Inc., a Boston-based media management company that also has worked with Reps. Michael Capuano and William Delahunt and Kerry, according to its Web site.
According to FEC filings, Rep. Frank also contributed $5,500 to the National Stonewall Democrats PAC, which “advocates within the Democratic Party on behalf of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered community,” its Web site says. Rep. Frank is one of three openly gay members of Congress.
He ended his campaign with $116,273 cash on hand, according to his FEC filing.
Mr. Morse, Rep. Frank’s opponent in 2004, received four failure-to-file notices from the FEC, but has since filed his post-general election report with the commission.
He received his fourth notice on Dec. 17, telling him that he had been “previously notified” of the report’s due date and that “failure to timely file this report may result in civil money penalties.”
Mr. Morse said he spoke with the FEC last week about the filings and said he is working to get the information online.
“It wasn’t that we had a failure to file, we filed,” he said. “It’s just that I was handling the online aspect of the filing and I just couldn’t figure out how to do it online, and so the filings have been done and I’ve made those documents available to everyone, including my opponent, who has a full copy of all of my filings.”
According to his filings with the FEC, Mr. Morse raised $147,276 for his campaign, all but $1,000 coming from individual contributions. He received one PAC contribution, from the Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
Mr. Morse said although he is “not pro-life in the classic sense,” the PAC contributed to his campaign near the race’s end and he has no objection to such contributions.
Mr. Morse ended his run with $8,764 cash on hand.
He called his first run an “interesting experience,” adding that he believes he would have done better had he run as a Republican.
“I wanted to offer the voters an alternative, and I believe I did that,” Mr. Morse said.
Mr. Morse said Wednesday he is “exploring the possibility” of running again in 2006, although on his campaign Web site he says that, “it often takes several tries before a candidate can defeat an incumbent” and asks for assistance to “help dump Barney Frank in 2006.”
In a letter to his supporters on his campaign Web site, Mr. Morse says that “rolling back liberalism in Massachusetts is daunting work” and asks for “help from now right up until November of 2006″ because he has ” determined not to stop campaigning against Barney Frank.”
Mr. Morse, a former talk radio host, also runs a blog site with commentary on political and world events and has written a book about his 2004 campaign, entitled “A Massachusetts Conservative in the Cradle of Liberty.”
###
