How Big Money Picks a Winner

By Ana Marie Cox

Former Senator Howard Baker once called Republican fund raiser Ted Welch "the No. 1 political fund raiser in all history." In late December, Welch signed up as Mitt Romney's national finance co-chair after one meeting. Welch admits he was also approached by the McCain campaign, but "I did not even think of them." Why? He says there was an "incident."

The incident involved Welch's longtime ally Lamar Alexander. To begin with, John McCain failed to support Alexander's November bid for Senate minority whip against Mississippi's Trent Lott. And then, Welch complains, McCain "went and convinced two other people to change their votes. I thought that was egregious." The McCain camp acknowledges recruiting on Lott's behalf. In the end, Alexander lost by one vote.

The 2008 presidential season is off to an early and crowded start. Candidates will be raising more money than ever before, not just to pay for a longer campaign but also to distance themselves from the pack of pretenders as quickly as possible. With the first actual ballots still 11 months away, Washington is already looking closely at which fund raisers have paired up with which candidate to get an early sense of a campaign's strength. Many fund raisers remain unattached for the time being, but the next few weeks are a critical juncture that will cement most of the notable partnerships. What used to be likened to a courtship is now more like speed-dating. What exactly makes these relationships come together? How do the moneymen and -women make up their minds?

Business interests, of course, play a role. Once the general-election choices are locked in, trial lawyers will have fallen in love with a Democrat, just as oilmen will find true romance with a Republican. But at this early stage, the contest for the support of influential fund raisers and large donors is also a personal one, with allegiances, grudges and gut feelings determining the fate of millions of dollars and eventually shaping the nomination field.

The most established operation in the race is also the brashest. Hillary Clinton has a cadre of dedicated fund raisers who have been with her since her husband's days in the White House. She recently made headlines by setting the audacious goal of having her top moneymakers bring in $1 million each, a mark that makes the $200,000 Bush's Rangers raised in 2004 seem quaint by comparison.

Clinton has been actively pursuing new "Hillraisers," particularly as she and Illinois Senator Barack Obama have fought to recruit what is left of John Kerry's money team. "The first time Hillary Clinton called me, I thought someone was pulling my leg," says Rob Crowe, the as-yet-undecided finance co-chair for Kerry's political-action committee. "She said, 'I know you're probably in mourning, but we'd love to get you on board.'" One less empathetic candidate called Crowe before Kerry had even finished his speech bowing out of the race.

The Clinton campaign has been aggressive about demanding loyalty as well. Many donors and bundlers (who collect cash from supporters and give it to campaigns in a lump sum) have traditionally hedged their bets by raising money for multiple candidates, particularly this early in a race. But this month Clinton's campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, put out a veiled threat to those who might stray, telling a reporter that donors who support more than one candidate "come off as not really being a supporter of anyone." Now the Clinton camp is trying to distance itself from that remark. "That's just Terry being Terry," says a figure associated with the campaign.

Beth and Ron Dozoretz, longtime Clinton supporters, seemed to brazenly defy this request for deference when they were hosts of an event on Feb. 2 for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, another Democratic candidate for President. Ron Dozoretz claims that the event--a "meet and greet," he says, not a fund raiser--harks back to a close personal relationship. But Washington insiders, looking for an explanation about why a Clinton supporter might have risked wandering, point to the Dozoretzes' company, ValueOptions, which oversaw $300 million in New Mexico mental-health services last year under a state contract approved in 2005. Dozoretz insists that's immaterial: "We're a leading provider of mental services to governments all over the country; when the bid came out for New Mexico, we bid on it, and we won."

But in myriad other ways, career or business ambitions play a role in deciding which candidate influential fund raisers choose to back. They might be on the hunt for an ambassadorship. Or maybe they work in financial services and would like to get in good with an almost certain also-ran who will still be chairing, say, the Senate Banking Committee long after the election is over. Hence the nifty $3,422,982 that Senator Chris Dodd--the Democrat from Connecticut who oversees that key Senate panel--socked away in the last quarter of 2006, the highest of any announced presidential candidate.

Obama hasn't been in the Senate long enough to inspire much hope of patronage or quid pro quo, but many of his backers at least say they're motivated by infatuation as much as anything. Mark Gorenberg, who was Kerry's California finance chairman, says of his decision to throw in with Obama, "It was a combination of head and heart, but in some ways it was the heart that was really there." When I ask him if he has fallen in love, he doesn't hesitate: "Yes!"

Fund raisers are volunteers, and they often get in the game because they like the ego boost. Joining a more fledgling operation can enhance that feeling. "If I walked into Dodd's office with $250,000," says a Democratic fund raiser, "I've hung the moon. $250,000 for Barack? I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Walk into Hillary's office with $250,000? Get in line."

On the G.O.P. side, McCain already has 21 of the biggest bundlers from the last Bush campaign, more than any other Republican hopeful. But Barry Wynn, a former Bush Pioneer and finance chair of his 2004 campaign, is helping Rudy Giuliani raise money in South Carolina. Giuliani's leadership post-9/11 was, of course, a factor in Wynn's choice. As for Rudy being a nontraditional Republican, for Wynn, that's exactly the point: "We need to rebuild the brand." Wynn committed after both Romney and McCain came calling. "Oh, I have had my lunches. And my breakfasts," he says with a little groan. But in general, the courtships for Republican donors have been low key. The Bush White House has not signaled a preference for a successor, so there is little sense that backing one candidate or another would be a betrayal of the President.

In the small world of Washington, there are many who have simply come to know a certain candidate personally and feel something akin to a social obligation. Says a high-level Democratic activist: "Your children are in the same school. You see them in nonpolitical circumstances. People wind up making choices that surprise people because of existing loyalties." There's the story of the young ex-Clinton aide who failed to sign on to Clinton's campaign and instead went to work for Senator Joe Biden. Why? Because Biden gave her husband his first job, and she felt she had to--in the words of someone close to her--"respect that relationship." But old relationships can take you only so far, and candidates will have to continue to schmooze, seduce and cajole big money to join their team. Says a G.O.P. member: "You can't get to $100 million at $2,300 a clip"--the limit set by the McCain-Feingold reforms in 2002--"by just calling your friends. Nobody has that many friends."