Hillary Clinton search for donors focuses on Silicon Valley, not Hollywood

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/08/hillary-clinton-donors-silicon-valley-not-hollywood

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Hillary Clinton’s tour of California this week had one item on the menu: money.

She schmoozed high-rolling donors in the salons of billionaires and multi-millionaires in Los Angeles and San Francisco, gilded stops on the path to the White House which reinforce California’s role as an ATM for presidential hopefuls.

It was a love-fest, according to one senior Silicon Valley donor, a so-called “bundler” who roped in others. “Every single woman that I called said yes. I couldn’t get them all into the event; it was sold out.”

The prospect of electing the first female president, and one who broadly reflected their views, was catnip to west coast liberals, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Clinton can only hope so. She may coast to the Democratic nomination next year but then face what is expected to be the most expensive presidential race in United States history in 2016.

The pilgrimage to west coast lucre is a path well-trodden – by Barack Obama, John Kerry and previous Democratic contenders – but Clinton’s three-day tour, which was due to wrap up on Friday night, had a notable difference.

The former first lady held conventional $2,700-a-head events but also reportedly chased mega-donors for a Super Pac, a type of campaign group ostensibly independent of an individual candidate which can raise unlimited amounts and flood the political system with so-called “dark money”.

There was another twist: Hollywood, for once, was not the principal quarry. That dubious honour shifted to Silicon Valley, where technology aristocrats found themselves courted with the ardor once reserved for Tinseltown’s moneybags.

Clinton has pledged to reform campaign finance rules - yet according to the New York Times she used her California sojourn to lobby for donors for the top Democratic Super Pac, Priorities USA Action, which hopes to raise $200m to $300m.

This controversial practice usually favours Republicans who can tap conservative tycoons such as the Koch brothers. Jeb Bush has delayed his formal entry into the Republican primary to have more flexibility raising funds for his favoured Super Pac.

Clinton would be the first Democratic presidential candidate to fully embrace these outside groups, who typically fund television ad blitzes.

Obama benefitted from Priorities USA’s attacks on Mitt Romney in 2012 but remained at arm’s length from the Super Pac and did not appear at their fundraisers.

Last month Clinton pledged “to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all”, even if it took a constitutional amendment. She did not elaborate but the vow was widely interpreted as a reference to Citizens United, the 2010 supreme court ruling which opened the spigot on Super Pacs and outside spending.

Progressives who want campaign finance reform, the bundler said, would back Priorities USA Action – expected to become Clinton’s de facto Super Pac, as it was for Obama – as “a necessary evil”. In the strange logic of American politics, the best hope of banishing Super Pacs was backing Clinton’s Super Pac to counter those of her Republican opponent, he said. “People will contribute to a Super Pac to get rid of the system.”

It helped, he added, that Clinton made time to work a room, shaking every hand and making everyone feel like they had her attention, even if just for a moment – unlike Obama, who used to bolt at the first opportunity. “All my guests were very happy. They didn’t feel they got a bum’s rush.”

Melinda Jackson, a politics professor at San Jose State University who follows presidential races, said Clinton would probably ride out accusations of hypocrisy over campaign finance.

“It’s the reality of these times. You have to play dirty to get there and clean up. Clinton is a pragmatic politician and wants to win. There will be criticism but I think people are realistic.”

Not everyone was convinced, especially in the wake of accusations of influence-peddling by the Clinton Foundation – vigorously denied by Hillary and Bill Clinton. In recent days street art sprouted around posh parts of Los Angeles, including fake, tree-shaped car fresheners with an image of Clinton and a caption: “Stench of Corruption.”

Her campaign billed the California trip as low-key and by-the-book: a handful of private events, chit-chat, short speeches and questions from small groups of guests, each of whom paid $2,700. That is the maximum an individual can contribute directly to a candidate’s campaign, as opposed an outside group.

In Los Angeles there was a breakfast at the Westwood home of Catherine Unger, a member of the Women’s Political Committee, a luncheon at the Pacific Palisades home of television producers Steven and Dayna Bochco, then dinner at the Beverly Hills mansion of entertainment mogul Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl.

In the San Francisco bay area Clinton attended a chicken curry lunch at the home of Tom Steyer, a billionaire investor and environmental activist whose pad offered panoramic views of the Golden Gate bridge, followed by an event hosted by Mark Buell and his wife Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of clothing companies Esprit and the North Face.

The fundraising was due to end on Friday night at the Portola Valley home of John Donahoe, the head of eBay, and his wife Eileen, global affairs director for Human Rights Watch.

Jackson, the analyst, said the technology sector, flush with the success of Facebook, Google and other titans, had overtaken the entertainment industry in the fundraising pecking order. “Silicon Valley is the new rock star.”

Hollywood has clashed with technology companies over piracy and copyright, but should any of Clinton’s studio chums – such as Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks Animation - lobby her, they will lose, said the San Francisco area bundler. “We’ll crush Hollywood if they try to make it an issue,” he vowed. “We deliver more cash than LA. Our dollars will make the case.”

He expressed confidence Clinton will eventually side with Silicon Valley’s desire to rein in the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance. “When the time comes I think she’ll make the right call.”