Early candidate protection adds to Secret Service burden
WASHINGTON - Presidential candidates received U.S. Secret Service protection earlier in this campaign cycle than ever before, adding to the agency's challenging workload, its director testified Thursday.
With seven months until the general election, the Secret Service so far has provided candidate protection for Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at more than 1,000 events, Director Mark Sullivan told a U.S. House appropriations subcommittee during a hearing on Homeland Security funding.
As of Feb. 29, the most recent date for which statistics are available, the service had provided protection on 303 days for Obama and 267 days for Clinton - surpassing the total number of protection days provided during the entire 2004 race.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumed Republican nominee, has no Secret Service protection because he has not requested it and is not statutorily required to have it, though his staff has talked with the agency, Sullivan said.
An election tempo "unlike anything we've ever seen" contributed to the earlier need for extra security, he said, and campaign events have drawn people in large numbers that would be expected in the month preceding a general election, not a year or more in advance.
Sullivan added after the hearing that his agents have a simple way of handling the change: "We just adapt."
Clinton already was protected as a former first lady, but the type of protection changed during her presidential campaign. Secret Service protection for Obama began in May 2007, 18 months before the general election, Sullivan said.
By comparison, protection for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 started 10 months before the general election, he said.
To get Secret Service protection, a candidate must request it and meet a set of qualifications that includes party affiliation, funding raised and standing in public polls. The final decision falls to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Sullivan said.
He estimated that protection for one candidate costs $37,000 to $38,000 daily and predicted the cost will approach $44,000 daily as the race continues.
Secret Service protection for the 2008 cycle will cost an estimated $106.6 million, compared with nearly $74 million for the 2004 cycle and about $54 million for the 2000 cycle, spokesman Darrin Blackford said.
Sullivan appeared before the subcommittee to discuss the president's 2009 budget proposal, which includes $26 million to cover the last month of protection for candidates and security for inauguration events and the newly elected leaders.
Rep. David Price, D-N.C., the subcommittee chair, suggested the 2008 race would be the costliest and perhaps the most challenging campaign for the Secret Service in its history.
"It has been a very, very busy year with the campaign," Sullivan said, "but I feel very comfortable with where we are," despite additional burdens caused by this month's visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Washington and New York and a high volume of foreign travel by those the Secret Service protects - the president, vice president and other high-ranking officials.
Representatives on the subcommittee expressed concern about the Secret Service's ability to balance its protective duties with its responsibility to investigate threats to the country's financial infrastructure, especially in cyberspace.
Several also wanted to know how the service was working with other federal agencies that conduct cyberspace investigations, a secondary focus of the hearing.
"The one thing I've found," Sullivan said, "is that there's plenty of work out there for everybody."
