Fund-Raising

Hillary Clinton is reporting a huge number, $27 million raised in the third quarter - but has not yet divulged how much of that is primary money, which is the key measurment in gauging where she stacks up against Obama, who announced the raising od nearly $20 million in primary money yesterday. If she outraised him, that could be a major setback to any momentum the slumping Obama hoped to get out of this filing.

UPDATE: Clinton outraised Obama in primary dollars, $22 million to his $19 million.

The statement from Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle is after the jump.  read more »

Here's Hillary Clinton's end-of-quarter fund-raising pitch, which makes unabashed use of Bill Clinton -- an evening with whom has been offered as a prize to a few lucky contributors.

In the letter Hillary says the results will be used by the media and her opponents to determine her grassroots support.

Full e-mail after the jump.  read more »

Congressman Joe Crowley of Queens and the Bronx yesterday became the latest official to endorse Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan. It was announced at a press conference in Grand Central Terminal, where I asked the mayor about another politician whose support he really needs: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who attended a fund-raiser while Bloomberg was testifying on the subject at an Assembly hearing.

For the record, Bloomberg said he didn't see anything significant in the timing, noting that, unlike him, most politicians have to raise money all the time.

Rudy Giuliani is looking to boost his second-quarter fund-raising numbers with a dinner for donors at the Sheraton on June 20, according to a one of the campaign's top contributors.

The minimum ticket for the event is $1,000, and Rudy's key backers are pitching the event as a "great time to impact Rudy's 2nd quarter results!" The dinner is being organized by Paul Singer, the campaign's eastern regional Finance Chairman and Ken Langone, the New York City finance chair, according to an invitation passed on by the supporter.

Giuliani's campaign often argued that it got a late start in the first fund-raising quarter, in which he reported nearly $15 million in donations, and that the second would be more impressive.

More than an hour into Mike Bloomberg's testimony about congestion pricing at an Assembly hearing today, someone reminded me that the most important Assembly member is at Tavern on the Green, raising funds.

Talk about timing.

If you're free Friday afternoon -- and you have $25,000 to spend -- you can drop by Tavern on the Green and sponsor a table at Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's fund-raiser.

The invitation, sent along by a reader, is sure to draw anybody with a rooting interest in what gets passed in Albany. And the timing of the event is perfect, coming just as session is winding down and deals are likely to be made on all of the legislature's unresolved proposals on issues including congestion pricing, gay marriage, legislative and judicial pay raises, campaign finance reform and non-partisan redistricting. To name a few.

Here’s an invitation to a fund-raiser later this week for Council member Bill de Blasio at the Manhattan home of investment banker Jeffrey Sachs.

De Blasio, along with the majority of the Council, will be term-limited out of office in 2009. He was a key figure in Hillary Clinton's first Senate campaign, has White House experience and has strong ties to labor. Though he’s been talked about as candidate for Brooklyn borough president, he still hasn’t made it clear, officially, what he’ll be running for.

Extra credit for the name given to de Blasio’s top fund-raisers: "Super Good Friends."

Tonight, Leroy Comrie will have a fund-raiser hosted by Christine Quinn and organized by the Seto Group.

Comrie has been talked about as a candidate for Queens Borough President, a position more than one current City Council member is interested in. So this seems to suggest that Quinn’s choice in that race, however unofficially, has been made.

And in case you follow this sort of thing, the Seto Group is the same one getting John Liu’s citywide campaign (for something) off the ground.

I got this invite this morning for Eric Gioia’s June 1st fund-raiser. In an email about it, he also has a “save the date” for a "second annual Beach Party” on July 11 on the Queens waterfront.

It's almost like he's planning to run for higher office or something.

Here’s a fund-raising letter for Andrew Cuomo’s June 13 event at the swanky Le Parker Meridian Hotel. What’s interesting isn’t the fact that he’s fund-raising (who in Albany isn’t?) but rather the disclaimer at the bottom.

It’s basically the same as Eliot Spitzer’s self-imposed limit of accepting no more than $10,000 per contributor, way below the state’s legal limit of about $50,100. And it closes the loophole that allows limited liability corporations from giving endless amounts of money.

What’s missing on Cuomo's fund-raising piece, but included in Spitzer's, is a line that closes the loophole on corporate contributions.

Here’s the fine print at the bottom of Cuomo’s fundraising letter:  read more »

One of Hillary Clinton's top donors says that the campaign's claim to now prefer lower-dollar fund-raising events will mean "more work" for Hillary, but that it is a necessary step in her pursuit of the nomination.

John Catsimatidis, who once suggested that Clinton would crush her rivals in political contributions, now has a much more modest take on the fund-raising challenges facing Clinton since Obama's strong showing.

"You have to expand your base," said Catsimatidis. "First you go out and get the money from the easiest sources -- past supporters who wrote big checks. Then you go out and find new people. It's more work."

Asked why she didn't just have more big ticket fund-raisers that hauled in record sums of cash in the first quarter, Catsimatidis wouldn't say that that well had dried up, but instead argued the logic of cheaper events.

"You have to do it because you have to expand your base," he said.

Hillary Clinton's campaign and supporters have said that there would be greater emphasis on small-dollar events in the second quarter of the race's fund-raising cycle.

Except, apparently, when Bill Clinton is headlining.

The invite for last night's event, organized by powerhouse lobbyist Patricia Lynch at the Westside home of Michael Del Giudice, specifically stated "minimum contribution of $2,000 per person" for "cocktails and conversation" with the former President.

Mitt Romney, who will be speaking at Yeshiva University tonight, is also planning two fund-raisers on May 7 and 8 here in the city. One of them will be a “Women for Romney” event headed by Meg Whitman, President and CEO of eBay, according to a source who received a call from the campaign about it.  read more »

Eliot Spitzer is going all-out to push his campaign finance reform proposals as part of his second major assault on Albany's status quo. (The first was his semi-successful fight over the budget.)
Among Spitzer's proposed reforms, a comprehensive list of which the administration released today for the first time, includes the lowering of campaign contributions for all state officials, increased penalties for violating contribution limits, and requiring campaigns to identify which contributions were bundled by lobbyists.

The full list of proposals is after the jump.  read more »

More on John McCain’s revamped find-raising operation…

His New York regional finance committee will have a meeting this coming Friday at the Regency in midtown Manhattan to discuss fund-raising strategy in what will be a crucial second quarter for the Arizona senator, according to a source in the campaign.

According to the source, McCain's schedule for this quarter is now fully booked, after a slow start in the first quarter in which he had only one major event in January and two in February.

On May 19th, commodity trading billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II will host a fund-raiser for Barack Obama, according to a knowledgeable source. The event will be held at Jones' oceanfront Greenwich mansion, which reportedly sits on top of a 25-car garage.  read more »

The warring (and incredibly wealthy) Pritzker family seems to have carried its feud into presidential politics.  read more »