Clinton makes fundraising stop in Charlotte

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton recently held an under-the-radar fundraiser in Charlotte, making her first foray into John Edwards country.

About 60 people showed up at the home of Johnny Taylor, a Charlotte vice president for an Internet company based in New York. Among the co-hosts were two ambassadors appointed by Bill Clinton: Mark Erwin of Charlotte and Jeanette Hyde of Raleigh. Also co-hosting was Crandall Bowles, chief executive officer of Springs Industries, a Hillary Clinton classmate at Wellesley College and the wife of former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, who is now president of the University of North Carolina system.

Although listed as a co-host, Hyde said she was in Florida and did not attend the event. But she was one of a group of Democratic money raisers who attended a lunch for Sen. Clinton in Washington last summer.

Hyde's involvement is likely to raise eyebrows because she held four or five fundraisers at her Raleigh home for Edwards when he was running for the Senate and for president. But Hyde said she is still undecided about whom to back in 2008.

"I'm keeping my options open," Hyde said. "I think this event was intended to help her with her New York Senate race."

Hillary Clinton has been making a hard run at key fundraisers for various Democratic presidential candidates in 2004, including Fred Baron, the Texas trial lawyer who was a key Edwards fundraiser, according to The New York Times.

Hillary Clinton stopped in Charlotte on her way to Washington from Florida, where she attended a fundraiser for Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, according to Pat Cotham, a Democratic activist who attended the event.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina will be in Goldsboro this month raising money for state Sen. Fred Smith, a Republican from Clayton. Graham is the first of what is expected to be several national political figures who will be coming to North Carolina to help Smith.

That might be unusual for a state senator who is running unopposed this year. But Smith is almost certain to run for governor in 2008.

Smith has been moving around the state. He is scheduled to speak at 10 Lincoln-Reagan Day dinners, seven county conventions and four district GOP conventions, according to his campaign.

Lots of people think life in our nation's capital is all wining and dining and good times. But congressional representatives are not always schmoozing with celebrities and hanging at the White House.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, for example, had never had his picture taken with any first lady.

Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, helped host a news conference and photo op with Laura Bush to announce cities that have just won federal money for historic preservation projects in the Preserve America program.

Miller is co-chairman of the 95-member Historic Preservation Caucus in Congress. The group pushes legislation on issues such as historic preservation, economic development of downtowns, and conservation of national parks and trails.

Bush is honorary chairwoman of Preserve America, a White House initiative that encourages historic tourism.

By staff writers Rob Christensen and Barbara Barrett. Christensen can be reached at 829-4532 or robc@newsobserver.com.

A night in Lincoln's bed for the Clinton donors
By Hugh Davies

Clinton 'rented out Lincoln bed'

ONCE treasured as a sacrosanct relic of the Civil War, the rosewood bed at the White House where Abraham Lincoln mapped the conflict, and where he was laid out after he was shot, emerged yesterday as a symbol of what critics call the crassness of the Clinton presidency.

It was turned into the most expensive bed-and-breakfast in America, with numerous liberal stars and producers in Hollywood offered a night there in a frantic grubbing for money, the mother's milk of politics, that the President instigated after the shock of the 1994 Republican seizure of Congress. The bed may be lumpy. One occupant, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, says it is difficult to clamber into. "You have to step up to get in, and it's not terribly comfortable."

But, as a friend of the president, Victor Fleming, a judge from Little Rock, Arkansas, remarked: "It beats the heck out of a Holiday Inn!" John Major used the bed, as did Queen Sonja of Norway, the evangelist Billy Graham, Britain's Liz Tilberis of Harper's Bazaar, and playwrights Neil Simon and John Guare. Nobody minded, as the room has always been regarded as a perk for pals of the President, or overseas visitors.

Richard Nixon, who once prayed with Henry Kissinger in the adjacent sitting room, offered it to Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores. But that was before the fat cats of Democratic politics were needed. Memos released by the Oval Office after five months of stalling, show that the room was virtually rented out by the President to anybody with $50,000 or $100,000 to spare to help his re-election.

The documents reveal that the lure was a top priority to counter the huge funds being amassed by the Republicans to win back the White House. After his congressional Democrats were hammered by the forces of Newt Gingrich, Mr Clinton approved a plan whereby high-rolling donors were rewarded. There were dinners, golf outings and morning jogs with him, along with a night in the suite where Sir Winston Churchill once took a bubble bath while smoking a cigar during a wartime visit.

The idea, according to Terence McAuliffe, then Democratic finance chairman, was to create "an excellent way to energise our key people" for the campaign. In a scrawled note, Mr Clinton said: "Ready to start overnight right away." He asked for the "top 10" list of donors, along with those paying $100,000 or $50,000.

His instructions had a powerful effect on the Democratic coffers. A list of 938 guests that have stayed in the bedroom showed that more than one in three donated money to the leader or the Democratic National Committee. They chipped in at least $6 million (£3.7 million).

Generous Americans sleeping in the bed, with its ornate headboard, included Hollywood moguls Steven Spielberg and Lew Wasserman, who gave $300,000 and $335,000 to the Democrats. The record producer David Geffen donated $200,000 and raised $1 million.

Other guests included singer Judy Collins, actors Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Richard Dreyfuss, Chevy Chase, Barbra Streisand, opera diva Kathleen Battle, and the CNN tycoon Ted Turner and his wife, Jane Fonda. In the days of Lincoln, there was a fuss about the cost of the bed. Lincoln said to his wife, Mary: "This will stink in the nostrils of the American people. Our soldiers need blankets."

Now, Americans, looking at the guest list, must be wondering what is going on, as the donors regarded as prime "sleepover" prospects included the head of a union suspected of Mafia ties.

It is also emerging that tax-payers paid the bill for the "extras" given to guests, from bathrobes embroidered "executive residence" to room-service ham and eggs.

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