The Checkbook Factor

"Politics has got so expensive," Will Rogers observed 37 years ago, "that it takes lots of money to even get beat with." What would Will say today? By convention time in August, presidential hopefuls will have shelled out at least $20 million--$16 million of it on primaries--and that is just a down payment on the $80 million more that they are expected to spend by Nov. 5. This year's total campaign tab, for all races down to dogcatcher, is estimated at $250 million, up 25% from 1964.

Old Republican Pro Leonard Hall, who had expected to pour $3,600,000 into George Romney's battle for the nomination, says that preconvention bills for presidential aspirants will be four times as much as in 1964, mostly because there are half a dozen hopefuls in 1968 as opposed to two in that year. Candidates traditionally inflate their foes' spending and poor-mouth their own, but their counterclaims give a good indication of the money involved. McCarthy's aides maintain that the Kennedy camp is spending $3,500,000 in California on television alone; an Indiana foe of both R.F.K.'s and McCarthy's says that each lavished $2,000,000 on the primary there.

Ponying Up. The most accurate source of campaign-spending information is the Manhattan-based Citizens' Research Foundation, which uses news paper stories, what candidates say they spend, and intelligent guesses. The foundation estimates R.F.K.'s spending to date at up to $5,000,000, McCarthy's at $3,000,000, Humphrey's at $2,000,000, Rocky's at $2,000,000, Reagan's at $500,000 and Lyndon Johnson's at $300,000 before he dropped out. Nixon's headquarters puts his spending at $2,000,000, and Finance Chairman Maurice Stans says that the figure will reach $5,000,000 before the convention. A conservative estimate of totals spent on all the primaries to date: New Hampshire, $675,000; Indiana, $1,250,000; Nebraska, $600,000; Oregon, $1,350,000; and California, at least $3,100,000. In Wisconsin, according to official if not quite credible reports, Nixon spent $457,534, McCarthy $342,527 and L.B.J. $137,964.

Who gives the money? Nixon's contributors include the Reader's Digest's DeWitt Wallace, Chicago Insurance Executive W. Clement Stone, Steel Heiress Helen Clay Frick, and 100,000 donors who sent in contributions by mail. Humphrey's finances are run by Stockbroker John L. Loeb, Sidney J. Weinberg and ex-Commerce Secretary John Connor. To raise his funds, McCarthy has Howard Stein of the Dreyfus Fund, his kinderklatsch and a pride of beautiful people. Kennedy's finances come mostly from the family coffers.

Chats, Charters & Chow. Most expensive single item for any campaigner is television time. One of Oregon's twelve stations, KGW, reported that in one-minute campaign spots alone, Nixon bought 112, Reagan 104, Kennedy 58, McCarthy 46 and Rocky 17. The station charges $400 per minute for a political spot in prime time (7:30-11 p.m.), $300 in Class A time (6-7:30 p.m.) and $110 in daytime.

Humphrey's money, so far, has gone mostly to 150 headquarters staffers, to his chartered Boeing 727 and to some 200 advance men drawing $20 a day in expenses plus travel. Chunks of McCarthy's money go to his young crusaders' bed and board. As for Rocke feller, the Research Foundation's Herbert Alexander finds the spending hard to judge "because he has so many people on his permanent payroll." Relatively few are, in fact, although Press . Secretary Leslie Slote is paid by New York State. Salaries for the 68-man campaign staff will cost $180,000 by convention time.

Hardest budget of all to pin down is Kennedy's. In addition to paying for a three-floor Washington headquarters, an army of arm-twisters and saturation-of-publicity media--not to mention his bill for the dozens of cuff links seized by avid admirers--Bobby in Indiana, Nebraska and California has rented trains at a total cost of $8,700. No one has even attempted to reckon the cost to Kennedy of supporting the 13 relatives who are campaigning for him in the field, but their daily phone calls home must cost--by anyone else's standards--a minor fortune.

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