Ben Carson is relying on a businessman with limited political experience to raise the money he’ll need to compete for the Republican presidential nomination in a field crowded with established contenders.
Carson, 63, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon and renowned in his field, never served in government or ran for elected office. His team, although led at the top by a cadre of veteran Republican operatives, reflects that background. Dean Parker is a good example. The Mobile, Ala., based telecommunications executive, 40, was tapped by Carson to serve as his campaign’s national finance chairman. Parker has never held a similar role, or anything approaching it, at this level.
In an interview Tuesday with the Washington Examiner about his responsibilities and Carson’s fundraising strategy, Parker said that he and the candidate have been friends for years. Carson, Parker explained, recruited him in part because the career physician wants a campaign organization that reflects his position in the 2016 race as a political outsider. That means filling some senior posts, such as his, with eager but amateur operatives.
“He’s been on both sides — the bottom one percent, the top one percent — and that has a lot of appeal with voters all across the nation,” Parker said of Carson, when asked to rate the candidate’s success on the fundraising trail so far.
Carson announced for president on May 4. The true measure of his fundraising won’t be known until July when candidates are required to file their second quarter numbers. But his campaign boasted that it surpassed 153,000 individual donors this week, and previously revealed that it had raised $6 million from March 3, when Carson announced that he was exploring a presidential bid, through the first two weeks of his official candidacy.
Parker did not dispute reports that Carson would like to raise between $70 million and $100 million by next April, but was careful not to peg those figures as the official goal set by the campaign (Parker declined to reveal internal projections.) Parker was open about Carson’s fundraising strategy and shared the campaign’s tiered donor programs with the Examiner.
Carson is relying on small grassroots donors to fuel his campaign, befitting his position as an outsider with support that comes mostly from outside of the Republican Establishment. Parker is hoping to compliment that with the traditional, establishment-oriented fundraising program that Carson tapped him to lead. That includes assembling a team of wealthy and well-connected bundlers and hitting up major GOP money corridors in California, New York and elsewhere.
But Parker conceded that Carson is going to have to do things differently to compete.
That means focusing on smaller fundraising markets. Parker mentioned Ft. Wayne, Ind., as one such city that the campaign has focused on. Carson’s operation also is trying to cultivate “low dollar” bundlers, who might not corral as much money as experienced wealthy fundraisers but who are dialed into their modest communities and might produce anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 over the course of the campaign. Parker declined to discuss how many bundlers have signed on thus far.
To raise money, Carson is targeting individuals he worked with in medicine and on corporate boards, including some for Fortune 500 companies, and wealthy conservatives attracted to his outsider message. More broadly, Carson and his team are soliciting medical professionals, particularly those who are frustrated with Obamacare and want Washington to make changes to the law; and owners of businesses that employ 1,000 workers or less, especially those in heavily regulated industries that are looking for relief.
The campaign finance staff is led by National Finance Director Amy Pass, a veteran of Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign and her deputy Sonya Harrison, as well as a handful of staff and 15 to 25 contracted consultants, Parker said. Parker and this team oversees a fundraising program broken into three tiers: Advisory Circle, for donors who bundle $25,000; Executive Circle, for $50,000 bundlers; and Board Member Circle, for those who bring in $100,000 or more.
Advisory Circle members get to participate in a monthly conference call with Carson, insider updates from campaign officials, automatic host status on all fundraisers held in their home state, a standing invitation to attend all campaign fundraisers and access to special events to be held at the Republican nominating convention in Cleveland.
Executive Circle members get all of that, plus a VIP Republican National Convention Package, which includes a VIP reception and access to a hospitality suite. Board Member Circle members get all of that, plus are named co-chairs of the national finance committee and get invited to a monthly dinner with Parker. He said the campaign’s goal is to enlist at least 100 individuals to achieve Board Member Circle status.
Carson has placed consistently in fourth place in the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls gauging where the contenders stand in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. The doctor currently sits at 9.4 percent, just behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 10.8 percent; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 10.6 percent and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 10 percent.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
