Mark Hanna

Hanna, an Ohio industrialist, ran William McKinley's 1896 campaign as a business operation, assessing banks and corporations a share of their assets and raising perhaps $3.5 million, far more than any previous campaign. He spent it on hundreds of speakers and well over 100 million pamphlets in many languages. The model of the modern money-driven national campaign begins with him. It also prompted the Tillman Act of 1907, the first federal ban on corporate contributions.