Reuven Frankel, a retired rabbi in Deerfield, Ill., is a longtime Democrat, and solicitations from the party have already begun invading his mailbox.
But Frankel cannot give to every Democratic cause, be it President Clinton’s presidential library, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate run or various congressional races.
“The library may be beautiful, but I don’t feel a particular urgency to support that,” Frankel said. “In terms of Hillary, I’m not sure if I want her to be elected or not. But Congress–I would be concerned with that. The priority is on the things that can really affect that which I want to be affected.”
Contributors like Frankel present a particular challenge to the Democratic Party as an unusual array of high-profile causes competes for the dollars of a finite number of Democratic givers.
The presidential campaigns of Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, of course, are vacuuming up funds. Mrs. Clinton’s Senate bid is an appealing cause for Democrats nationwide.
The Clintons’ legal defense fund is mining a similar pool, and the Clinton library is gearing up for its own fundraising drive.
Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), meanwhile, is urging Democrats to help the party retake the majority in the House, which seems tantalizingly within reach in the 2000 election. And in the Senate, Democrats are trying to knock off Republicans elected in the 1994 GOP tide.
Each of these causes takes money, which will have to come from the same basic pool of contributors. And it is not clear how often they will pony up.
“If you keep going to the same group of people with repeated requests, at some point people will say `enough,’ ” said former Democratic Party Chairman David Wilhelm. “There are only so many times you can go to the well.”
Republicans, meanwhile, hope the multiplicity of outstretched Democratic hands will mean that none of them gets what it truly needs.
“There are limited resources for every Tom, Dick, Harry and Mary who is running for House and Senate,” said Don Walter, a Republican media consultant in Alexandria, Va. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, he said, will hurt “more congressional and Senate campaigns than anything possible. Thank you, Hillary, for running.”
But if the Democrats are to pay a price, it has not happened yet. For several reasons, political fundraising has been shattering records this year for both parties.
With the economy healthy, many people have more money to spend.
Clinton’s impeachment ordeal has fired up the faithful on both sides. And the stakes are high for the 2000 election because the House, as well as the White House, seems within the grasp of either party.
Democrats insist those factors will continue to shovel dollars into all their campaign chests.
“There is a lot of money out there for people to give,” said Jenny Backus, press secretary to the Democratic National Committee. “People don’t have to choose one Democratic group. They can give to all the Democratic groups.”
But Democratic donors like Thomas Demetrio, a Chicago attorney, must decide which candidates get his money. “It just seems to never, ever end,” said Demetrio, who has contributed to both Gore and Bradley. “The bottom line is, you pick and choose.”
Money is not the only resource for which campaigns compete. The various Democratic efforts are vying to hire the best operatives and to get the most press. Many Democrats believe Mrs. Clinton’s New York race has harmed Gore in that crucial presidential state by stealing attention from his campaign.
Other Democrats fear that contributors throughout the country will be so eager to organize events for the national glamor candidates, Gore and Mrs. Clinton, that other candidates will suffer.
“The real concern is time,” said a Democratic fundraiser. “A lot of these national Democrats want to host the first lady or the vice president in their house, instead of having Mel Carnahan or Bill Nelson or another top-tier Senate candidate. That is what Democratic fundraisers are worried about.”
Gov. Mel Carnahan of Missouri, former U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson of Florida, and Rep. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan are among the candidates whom Democrats believe have a shot at winning Senate seats held by Republicans.
The most precious resource for Democrats is Clinton. For all his political liabilities, Clinton has an ability to charge up the faithful, drawing them to rallies and opening their wallets.
Concerned that the president was being pulled in too many directions, the Democratic campaign committees for the House and Senate have agreed on a joint schedule for Clinton’s appearances.
Some Democrats, though, wonder whether Clinton’s closeness with Gore and Mrs. Clinton could skew priorities.
“If Hillary runs, it’s going to be a big deal that she wins,” said the Democratic fundraiser. “The president is going to be calling in all his favors. He’ll be talking to Bob Torricelli (the New Jersey senator who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) every day. If it’s crunch time and she is down 2 or 3 points, and Debbie Stabenow is clinging to a 2- or 3-point lead, it’s going to be a problem.”
More than a year before the election, the fundraising whirlwind is in full spin. On Aug. 7, Clinton headlined a Gore fundraiser in Little Rock, with old Clinton allies helping pull in $250,000 for the vice president. A short time later, the president and the vice president attended four separate Gore campaign events in a single night.
Meanwhile, the first lady, with the president’s help, has been working hard at the money game during the Clintons’ vacation in Massachusetts and New York. First came two fundraisers on Martha’s Vineyard, during which Clinton played the saxophone, recounted how he had courted Hillary Rodham and raised $350,000 for her campaign.
Then the Clintons hosted a flurry of fundraisers in New York’s posh Hamptons last weekend. Saturday featured an event with comedian Jon Stewart and another with singer Phoebe Snow. A $5,000-a-head barbecue Sunday was followed by an event featuring rocker Jon Bon Jovi that raised $900,000 for the Democratic National Committee.
To some Democratic givers, all this is dizzying.
“It’s pretty bizarre,” said Gerald Lefcourt, a New York attorney and Democrat. “I went to one of the 15 fundraisers in the Hamptons. I ran into Mark Green, who will be running for mayor. Bill Bradley came to a lunch for a close friend of mine. And of course there is Gore. It’s really unbelievable.”
