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GOP launches fund-raising blitz for BushPresident, first lady headline events
By John Mercurio
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republicans are preparing for a two-week fund-raising blitz designed to provide President Bush's re-election campaign with nearly $25 million. That's about as much money as the nine Democratic candidates raised during the entire first three months of 2003 combined. All candidates running for the White House and Congress in 2004 are intensifying fund-raising efforts leading up to the end of the second quarter, June 30. Candidates are required to file quarterly reports with the Federal Election Commission by July 15. With that in mind, only one of the Democrats running for president, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, scheduled public events Monday, while fund-raising efforts proceed behind closed doors. But Democrats already are lowering expectations for fund raising. "We've always said the third and fourth quarters [of 2003] would be our strongest, not the second," said Jamal Simmons, a spokesman for Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democratic presidential candidate. "We're a message-focused campaign, not a money-focused one. We'll have the money we need, but we're more focused on the message than the money." The GOP's latest money chase starts Tuesday night with a $2,000-a-head fund-raiser to be attended by the president. Fresh off a long Father's Day weekend in Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush will travel just a few blocks from home, for a short address to several hundred guests a Washington hotel. Friday, Bush will headline a fund raiser in Greensboro, Georgia, at the plantation home of oilman Mercer Reynolds III, Bush's former Texas Rangers ownership partner and ambassador to Switzerland, who last month became chairman of the Bush/Cheney finance committee. The same day, Laura Bush will be in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a $1,000-a-person event with Mayor Bob Corker, a Bush friend who raised more than $100,000 for the cause in 2000. Three days later, on June 23, New York Gov. George Pataki will host Bush in New York City for an event expected to yield $2 million to $5 million. Also scheduled to be on hand are Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani Donors who raised at least $50,000 for the Pataki event were invited to lunch last Tuesday with White House senior adviser Karl Rove, who crowed that the Bush team expects to play seriously next year in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey. Bush lost all four of those states in 2000, by an average of 16 percentage points. Vice President Dick Cheney will travel to both Richmond, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts, June 23 for money events. Two days later, Laura Bush will raise money in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two days after that, the president will host money events in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Finally, just hours before the midnight deadline, Bush will jet to events in Miami and Tampa, Florida, where he is expected to collect at least $4 million. Cheney will be in Akron, Ohio, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, for another duet of last-call fund raisers. Democrats also are scrambling this week to boost their second-quarter money reports, which will be scrutinized as a key show of strength leading into primaries early next year. Graham is finishing up a two-day fund-raising trip to New York. He'll raise money Monday night at the home of Stephen Graham, his nephew and son of the late Washington Post publisher, Katherine Graham. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is raising money in Atlanta, Georgia, but he won't be joined there by his former colleague, fellow vet and recently announced backer, ex-Sen. Max Cleland. Former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri is flying Monday to the West Coast, stopping in Denver, Colorado, for a fund-raising lunch. Once in California, he'll discuss energy, environment and health care, as well as raise money, until he departs Thursday. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman will be holding private fund raisers in Connecticut Monday, while his daughter Rebecca will hold an event in New York City for young professionals. Gephardt will be in New York June 23 for a fund raiser at the Grand Hyatt Hotel with singer Barry Manilow, who has already contributed the maximum $2,000 to the Democrat.
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