August 28, 2004
Kerry Still Raises Money, Following Finance Law's Fine Line
By JODI WILGOREN
AN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27 - Senator John Kerry pulled into the political piggy bank that is California and picked up $6 million for the Democratic National Committee's bulging accounts in 24 hours, part of a weeklong blitz that raised close to double that amount.
"You have been extraordinary in this effort, again and again, investing in the future of our country," Mr. Kerry told 700 people here over lunch on Friday in a hotel ballroom glittering under four huge chandeliers.
Mr. Kerry has been legally barred since accepting the presidential nomination last month from collecting checks of up to $2,000 for his campaign, because he is accepting $75 million in public money to finance his general election efforts.
So he has been headlining fund-raising events where donors pump up to $27,000 each into the Kerry-Edwards Victory Fund, which goes mainly to the party's coffers but also subsidizes the legal and accounting work for the campaign.
For donors, that is often a distinction without a difference. They get to hear the candidate - and, if they donate enough, pose for pictures with him - and they expect the money will help his election.
"We'll give whatever it takes to beat Bush," said Jack Brooks, 81, a real estate investor at the luncheon who said he had maxed out on contributions to Mr. Kerry and the Democratic Party. "Every campaign takes more and more money. Each candidate, each time around, needs twice as much as the year before."
For Mr. Kerry, the fund-raising seemed a fine way to spend a week of August when many voters are on vacation and much of the news media is focused on the Republican National Convention. Instead of sticking to swing states, Mr. Kerry visited several stalwart Democratic areas.
On Saturday evening under a tent in front of a three-story East Hampton, N.Y., beach house that belongs to Alan Patricof, the venture capitalist, Mr. Kerry sat in on guitar as Jimmy Buffett sang "Brown-Eyed Girl."
On Thursday at the Fairmont Hotel in Santa Monica, he was serenaded by Tony Bennett who sang "The Best Is Yet to Come." He also bagged $2 million at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and planned to pull in $1.5 million on Friday night at the Westin hotel in downtown Seattle.
Then there was the $680 from Willie Field, a 6-year-old who met Mr. Kerry in Philadelphia and handed him a check with what he earned this summer selling bead bracelets made by his 9-year-old brother.
"Six-hundred eighty bucks," Mr. Kerry marveled the next day, retelling the story in Green Bay, Wis. "That's going to help us be on the radio, somewhere. That's huge - not to mention the people he touched. There's no limit to the things every single one of you can do."
Indeed, there seems no limit to what partisans on each side are willing to pay this campaign season. As of last month, President Bush had raised $242 million, Mr. Kerry $233 million.
In the 18 months ending June 30, the Republican National Committee brought in $245 million, and its Democratic counterpart $153 million.
The Democrats' Victory Fund has $40 million. In the primaries, the first $2,000 went to Mr. Kerry's campaign and the next $25,000 to the party. Now, the first $25,000 goes to the party and the last $2,000 to Mr. Kerry's General Election Legal and Accounting Committee, which can be used just for certain technical tasks.
"This is an enormous financial burden for us - we're not rich," Brennan Newsom, 66, said of himself and his wife, Franza Giffen, 55, civil litigation lawyers who attended the lunch and said they had given $25,000 to the Democrats this year, five times what they donated in 2000. Eileen Donahoe, 45, a lawyer turned graduate student who never wrote a political check before enlisting to help raise money for Mr. Kerry a year ago, said she had been surprised at how easy it was. Some 50 people gave or raised at least $25,000 to be co-chairmen of the lunch, Ms. Donahoe said; 26 people brought in double that, to be chairmen of the event.
"It's a cause everybody cares about," said Ms. Donahoe, who lives in Portola Valley. "It's phenomenally easy; I've been shocked.''
As the campaign revs up, fund-raising is the sole activity likely to send Mr. Kerry to places like California, where recent polls show that he enjoys at least a 10-point lead. He is doing what he can to make the check writing go down easy.
"Don't think of this as a fund-raiser," he told the 400 people who paid $5,000 each for the privilege of dining with him Thursday. "Think of it as my Hollywood audition for 'West Wing.' "