Biden Bucks

In Defying the Odds, we discuss campaign finance and campaign technology. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. 

Molly Nagle and John Verhovek at ABC:

Former Vice President Joe Biden raised $22.7 million in the fourth fundraising quarter of 2019, his campaign announced Thursday, his best number yet of the 2020 cycle-- figures that come a week after his campaign disclosed the names of their "bundlers", individuals that helped raised more than $25,000 for the candidate.

Biden’s current fundraising numbers put him third so far compared to other 2020 campaigns who have already released their numbers for the fourth quarter of 2019. Sen. Bernie Sanders announced a staggering $34.5 million in Q4, and former Mayor of South Bend, Ind Pete Buttigeig, who raised $24.7 million."Biden for President doubled its online fundraising and increased its overall fundraising by 49% compared to last quarter, demonstrating financial momentum at the same time as Vice President Biden’s lead nationally has grown," a press release sent out by the Biden campaign Thursday afternoon said.

Throughout his campaign, Biden has not shied away from high-dollar fundraisers and held more than 100 fundraisers in 2019 alone.

Late last month, following the lead of fellow candidates N.J. Sen. Cory Booker and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the Biden campaign, released the names of more than 200 bundlers-- a group that spans well connected Hollywood figures such as movie executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and current or former elected officials that have endorsed Biden.

The bundlers include Delaware Senator Chris Coons, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and former Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy.
(MORE: Pete Buttigieg releases list of 113 bundlers for his campaign)

Former top Obama economic adviser Jeff Zients, International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) President Harold Schaitberger, and Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky, are also on the list.

Hillblazers

Shane Goldmacher reports at Politico:

Clinton calls them her “Hillblazers,” campaign bundlers who have given or raised at least $100,000 for her campaign. And she has erected an unparalleled and unprecedented infrastructure of 1,133 such people — nearly double the number of any past presidential candidate, including President Obama four years ago.

While Clinton and her advisers like to tout her small online donors, it is these bundlers in more than 40 states and four foreign countries who form the true backbone of her financial operation. Combined, this elite $100,000-and-up club has amassed a minimum of $113 million for Clinton and the Democratic Party — and the actual figure is likely far, far higher than that. (The biggest bundlers typically collect millions for campaigns.)
...
Among her bundlers are celebrities (Will Smith) and sports stars (Earvin “Magic” Johnson), Hollywood directors (Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) and corporate executives (Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg), Wall Street-types (Marc Lasry), media executives (Haim Saban and Anna Wintour) and members of Congress, including her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, who helped raise more than $100,000 for Clinton before he joined the ticket in July. The Clinton campaign said 45 percent of its bundlers are women.

There are also federal lobbyists, from whom the Democratic Party under Obama refused to accept money, a prohibition that has since been rolled back.

Via Wikileaks:

And when Saban wrote to Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, on March 15 of this year to say he was “very happy…relieved” at their recent primary victories, Mook wrote back: “Thank YOU for making it possible!!”

Saban and his wife have given a combined $10 million to Clinton’s super PAC, and hosted that $5 million evening at their Beverly Hills home for Clinton’s campaign in August 2016.

OFA, Bundlers, and Access

The Washington Post reports on fundraising for Organizing for Action:

The fledgling Organizing for Action says it will be nonpartisan and steer clear of election activity. But the line between issue disputes and electoral politics can be a fuzzy one. The first of an expected wave of ads on gun control, for example, has targeted only Republicans. And OFA board member Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s reelection campaign, has been talking with Democratic Party leaders, including those responsible for success in the 2014 midterm elections.

Over the past month, Messina and Jon Carson, a leading strategist, have traveled the country meeting with members of the Obama 2012 National Finance Committee, who are being pressed back to work to find support for the new organization.

In huddles with Hollywood studio executives, California energy investors and Chicago business titans, they have suggested $500,000 as a target level for OFA bundlers and that top donors get invitations to quarterly OFA board meetings attended by the president.

The Administration's Gay Marriage Muddle

At The Washington Post, Dana Milbank goes full-metal snark:

If Vice President Biden continues to make public appearances during this campaign, White House press secretary Jay Carney should be offered a membership in the janitors’ union. 

As things stand, the spokesman does not have the supplies necessary to clean up the mess Biden made in his appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Biden gave his full support to same-sex marriage — a position conspicuously at odds with the public stance of his boss, President Obama, who is widely assumed to share Biden’s views but who says that his own thinking is “evolving.”

At Politico, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin, and Glenn Thrush report:

“They had the best of both worlds going up until this weekend where they didn’t have to rock the boat of actually coming out for it. The gay community was fully happy in their belief that he ‘wink, wink’ supported it,” a top Democratic communications strategist said. “Now, in their efforts to contain the [Joe] Biden fallout, they seem to be digging in against gay marriage, emphasizing how they are not for it. That is the opposite of what they have successfully been doing all along.”

At The Washington Post, Peter Wallsten and Dan Eggen add a fascinating datum:

About one in six of Obama’s top campaign “bundlers” are gay, according to a Washington Post review of donor lists, making it difficult for the president to defer the matter. Activists are planning a campaign for the adoption of a pro-gay-marriage plank in this year’s Democratic Party platform. And a series of referendums this year on same-sex marriage — including one in the swing state of North Carolina on Tuesday — are putting the issue at the forefront.

And today, North Carolina voters will probably pass a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.  The Democratic national convention is taking place in that very state, leading a Daily Kos blogger to write:

This is very, very, very late in the game to consider, but does Charlotte, North Carolina deserve to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention if the state passes a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions?

Logistically, it is past the point of no return to suggest that the 2012 DNC be moved to another host city. And it is destructively punitive to hold the city of Charlotte responsible for the bigotry of an entire state, but how can the Democratic Party reward such deplorable electoral behavior?

Bundlers

In June, CBS reported:

President Obama granted plum jobs and appointments to almost 200 people who raised large sums for his presidential campaign, and his top fundraisers have won millions of dollars in federal contracts, according to a new report from the Center for Public Integrity.

In one example detailed by the group's iWatch News, Telecom executive Donald H. Gips "bundled" half a million dollars in contributions to the president for his reelection campaign. ("Bundling" is the practice of gathering together a group of donations, and was popularized because of legal limits in individual contributions. It has been used particularly aggressively by Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.)

Gips went on to take charge of hiring in the Obama White House and (was later) named ambassador to South Africa. And his company, Level 3 Communications, was granted millions in stimulus contracts for broadband projects. Gips told iWatch he was "completely unaware" of the federal windfall. The company has taken $13.8 million in stimulus money.

The report found that 80 percent of Obama bundlers who raised $500,000 or more for Mr. Obama - many of whom are being asked to do the same for his reelection bid - ended up in "key administration posts," in the words of the White House.

At the New York Times, Nicholas Confessore notes the president's reliance on bundlers:

More than half a million people have donated to the president’s campaign or his joint fund with the Democratic National Committee since Mr. Obama formally entered the race in April, and the two accounts gained a combined record-breaking $86 million for the campaign by the end of June. But Mr. Obama’s bundlers — 271 in all — accounted for at least 40 percent of the total, according to the campaign’s estimates.

Mr. Obama’s elite donor corps live in 26 states and the District of Columbia, though a vast majority live in the traditional centers of political fund-raising: Texas, Florida, California and, above all, New York.

Confessore notes the impact of incumbency:

In March, for example, Mr. Obama hosted about 30 supporters, many with ties to Wall Street, at an informal discussion in the Blue Room of the White House about financial regulation and the economy. No money was raised at the event, which was similar to receptions and events held by past presidents.

But 17 of those guests appeared on Friday’s list of bundlers for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign, accounting for a minimum of $3.95 million of the $86 million he raised.

“It’s high-priced access to closed policy discussions with deep-pocketed individuals, just like it’s always been,” Ms. Miller said.

But incumbency can also complicate fund-raising. Only about one in five of the supporters who bundled checks for Mr. Obama last time appear on the list disclosed by his campaign Friday.

One reason for the drop-off: Upon taking office, Mr. Obama appointed dozens of his top fundraisers to ambassadorships, government advisory boards or jobs in his administration, perches from which they may be prohibited from raising campaign money for the president. One such supporter, Matthew Barzun, resigned in April as the United States ambassador to Sweden to become the Obama campaign’s national finance chairman.

Mr. Obama, unlike his Republican opponents, has made a point of swearing off contributions from registered lobbyists and corporate political action committees.

But the president’s bundlers include business executives whose companies have substantial interests before the federal government. Marc Benioff, who raised more than $500,000, is also chairman of Salesforce.com, a company whose software the Obama administration has adopted for wide use in federal agencies. Another bundler, Michael Kempner, is president of the MWW Group, a national public affairs company that has a lobbying practice in Washington.