The Beaste travels to Texas to fatten her coffers (no, this isn't a snide remark about her ankles):
McALLEN — Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, visited the McAllen home of bank chairman and real estate developer Alonzo Cantu on Tuesday for a private, $500-a-ticket luncheon that raised as much as $125,000 for her 2006 re-election campaign.
The former first lady and current New York senator last visited McAllen on Aug. 18, 1999, for a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising breakfast at Cantu’s home. That event raised more than $200,000 for her high-profile Senate race against conservative Republican and then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
The Tuesday fund-raiser was closed to the news media. Clinton’s Senate offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City did not return messages seeking comment, nor did the Washington, D.C., office of her principal campaign committee, Friends of Hillary.
Not even the executive director of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party was aware of the exact details of the event. Armando Garza was aware of the fund-raiser, but said it was scheduled to be held in the evening.
"She was here and she’s gone," said McAllen business owner Martha V. Hinojosa, 46, who attended the fund-raiser with her 18-year-old daughter. "Most people thought it was going to be in the evening."
Hinojosa met the senator for the first time during Clinton’s two-hour visit Tuesday and was impressed by what she saw in the woman many regard as the frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination.
"She talked with a lot of enthusiasm about trying to put the Democratic Party back together. She spoke about Democrats opening the lines of communication."
Hinojosa said the senator also reiterated that the $5 trillion budget surplus the United States had while her husband, Bill Clinton, was president has turned into a $6 trillion deficit under the Bush administration.
Clinton also warned that Republicans "want to take us back to the days before FDR" and "want to end Social Security," Hinojosa said.
The senator also told those in attendance that she and former President Clinton "like the Valley," that he was "doing well after his surgery" and that he "was a little bit jealous because she was here and he wasn’t," Hinojosa added.
She estimated 250 people attended the luncheon at Cantu’s lavish home. The board chairman of Lone Star National Bank and president of Alonzo Cantu Construction Inc. said he was in a meeting and unavailable to discuss her visit when The Monitor contacted him Tuesday afternoon and evening.
Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission indicate Cantu, through Friends of Hillary, gave $2,000 to the senator’s reelection campaign on Dec. 27, 2004.
Garza, of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party, said Cantu’s friendship with the Clintons dates back to the 1992 presidential race.
"Alonzo Cantu was always very helpful, and so they developed a friendship over the years," Garza said. "During President Clinton’s first run, as well as his re-election bid, he was a staunch supporter and helped raise funds in the area for President Clinton."
Garza said the Rio Grande Valley benefits any time a high-profile person such as Sen. Clinton visits the region.
"I think it’s always good to have the national attention that we can get from something like this. I think it’s very important that business leaders in this community have ties to national leaders like Sen. Clinton, because that makes it a lot easier to communicate our needs and our situations, whatever they may be.
"We just wish that they wouldn’t just come here and raise all the money and then take it all out of state. I would hope that they would remember us and try and help us in our fund-raising efforts as well here locally. But it’s the price we pay to have the national attention that we can get."
http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=6323&Section=Valley
And Austin:
AUSTIN — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday told supporters at a Central Texas fund-raiser that they need to work at the grassroots level on 2006 Democratic campaigns to help oust Republicans in the U.S. Congress.
"We have to do everything possible," said Clinton, D-NY. "We've got to be ready to fight back."
Speaking to a crowd of several hundred people at the Austin home of Garry Mauro, the former Texas Land Commissioner who ran for Texas governor in 1998, Clinton said the Bush administration is following a "radical, reactionary agenda."
"I think a lot of Americans are waking up to that," she said.
Clinton said Democrats must be patient and steadily show support for Democratic candidates if the party is to regain power.
Supporters paid $100 to $500 each to attend the event, which raised money for the former first lady's 2006 re-election campaign. Mauro, who has been friends with the Clintons for 30 years, said 500 people had signed up to attend.
After the event, the senator headed to another fund-raiser at the home of Roy Spence, founder and president of GSD&M, a multibillion dollar advertising firm in Austin.
Ann Lewis, a spokeswoman for Clinton's political action committee, said the group did not set fund-raising goals for the Texas stops.
Former President Clinton, who is recovering from an operation to remove scar tissue and fluid that developed after his heart bypass surgery six months ago, did not attend the Austin events.
"He'll be better than ever," his wife said of his recovery.
http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/gen/ap/TX_Hillary_Clinton.html