The Woman Behind Obama's Money Machine

Washington Post: Finance Guru Helped Transform A Fledgling Campaign Into A Fundraising Juggernaut

(Washingtonpost.com) 
By early February, Obama had recruited billionaire hotel heiress Penny Pritzker to head his national finance team. The two had met when Michelle Obama's brother was coaching her children's basketball team, and they became friendly before Obama launched his political career.

When Obama broached the idea of running for Senate, Pritzker recalled, she had her doubts. "We decided we would put aside political assessments about odds of winning or losing," she said. A similar reluctance gripped her in the face of a presidential bid against a Clinton, but she said her husband convinced her that "you have to find a way to do this."

Obama also landed several Kerry bundlers, including Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Gorenberg, and lured two former fundraisers of Bill Clinton's, Boston financier Alan Solomont and New York investment manager Orin Kramer. Solomont said he was surprised by the notice his decision received. "I wasn't looking to make a statement about the Clintons," he said. "My decision wasn't in any way based on less affection or respect for her. [Obama] just had this energy. I could tell this was going to be something different."

Smoot knew Obama was not alone in pursuing potential fundraisers. Some were getting daily calls from presidential candidates. One potential bundler contacted by Smoot was Norman Hsu, one of the most reliable donors from her tenure as finance chair for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Hsu would later become mired in scandal as a top bundler for the Clinton campaign, but he was regarded at the time as a prime target because of his reputation for producing a steady flow of campaign cash.

In an interview -- before it was reported that Hsu was a fugitive trying to outrun a 15-year-old conviction for running a Ponzi scheme -- he recalled his call from Smoot. She asked what he thought of Obama's bid and whether he might consider helping. "I told her, 'You're asking for an unbiased opinion from someone who is very biased.' She knew I was loyal to Senator Clinton. I told her she was asking the wrong person. We both respected each other well enough not to talk about it after that."

Two key donors in Philadelphia, lawyers Richard L. Shiffrin and Mark A. Aronchick, took weeks to decide between the two campaigns. A key Clinton aide invited the two men and their wives to Washington. "It was one of the most unbelievably thrilling and well-organized days of anything I have done in all my years in politics," Aronchick said. "And I don't get dazzled easily."

Smoot had an aide call and propose that Obama meet the two lawyers at the Philadelphia train station. They could ride with him to a fundraiser. Later, she asked Pritzker to reach out. But both enlisted with Clinton and say they have since bundled more than $650,000 for her.

Online Successes

Smoot and Pritzker soon began talking about another, less glamorous component of the Obama fundraising machine.

"It seemed to me, consistent with the grass-roots nature of the campaign that Barack had envisioned, that online fundraising ought to be successful," Pritzker recalled telling Smoot. "The question was, could we execute?"

Smoot had hired Meaghan Burdick, 31, to coordinate fundraising online and through the mail, the same job she had been doing for the Democrats' congressional campaign committee. The prospects looked uncertain, at best, Burdick said. "The senator didn't do much mail in his Senate campaign, and he really didn't do a whole lot of fundraising, period," she said. But Joe Rospars, Obama's Internet guru, thought he saw potential in the grass-roots approach the campaign seemed to be taking. He wanted to design a Web site, he said, that would "take it to the people."

Burdick's first appeal through the mail was shipped out to a list of 800,000 people she had cobbled together using addresses collected during Obama's earlier campaigns and ones rented from unusual sources, including Sojourners magazine and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Atlanta. The three-page letter evoked themes of "hope" and "change" and closed with a quote from King: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

More than 17,000 donations came back, Burdick said -- about double what she had expected.

The campaign launched the finished version of its Web site on Feb. 10, and five days later the first e-mail went out, timed with Obama's formal announcement in Springfield, Ill. Close to $500,000 came gushing in.

"It was overwhelming," Burdick said. "You just don't see that strong of a response. I anticipated we could build a program and it would be good, but there was just no way to possibly gauge that it was going to be that big."

Solomont recalled thinking that while the appeals he had made on behalf of Bill Clinton were aimed at wealthy donors, this effort could target just about anyone. "We had decided we weren't going to focus just on raising big bucks," Solomont said. "We were going to go after people paying $2,300 but also students paying $23."

After having initial success with a low-dollar event in Kentucky, they decided to try a Friday night kickoff event on April 20 at an arena in Boston, where they would open the doors to as many people as they could draw. Solomont was nervous -- "It was a gamble," he said. When the doors opened, they had a line, blocks long, waiting to get in. In all, 5,700 people turned out, and more than $750,000 was raised.

"I think that was the moment for us," Solomont said. "I think people really got a sense that we could do this differently."

Keeping It Going

Obama's campaign offices are spread across the entire 11th floor of a Chicago high-rise. The finance team's desks are scattered around a Ping-Pong table. Tabloid headlines -- "Record Haul for Obama," "Run for the Money" -- are taped to the walls.

As the summer wore on, Smoot sat in the middle, tracking dozens of events around the country on her laptop. In a rolling series of phone calls with her regional fundraisers, she pushed and prodded them to hit their goals, then updated her spreadsheets so she could keep tabs on the quarter's target.

By mid-August, she had a good sense that Obama would have another $20 million when the third quarter ended on Sept. 30. What she did not know was that Clinton, for the first time, would have raised decidedly more.

"I don't like getting beat," Smoot said last week.

The impact of the latest numbers remains unclear. Clinton has used that successful quarter to solidify her position as the front-runner -- a move that could persuade fence-sitting donors to get on board and produce an even more bountiful fourth quarter. Obama's money team, meanwhile, will try again to capitalize on the continuing grass-roots interest in his candidacy, and a pool of smaller-dollar donors who continue to have room under the legal limits to give.

Steve McMahon, a Democratic political strategist, said it has at least become clear that neither candidate will be able to substantially outspend the other as the two campaigns face voters for the first time. Both camps say they have enough to compete not only in New Hampshire and Iowa, but on Feb. 5, when they will compete in costly primaries in several large states.

McMahon thinks Obama's success will no longer boil down to how much money he has. "At this point, it's all about strategy," he said. With Smoot's help, Obama "achieved critical mass."

[gaye5]

hey, if this man one of the elect, haven''t all the other presidents (except one) all been from the same ancestral line.. I have heard that if they don''t come from the same ancestral line that they haven''t a show... talk about the royal line...

[prinzowhales]

Here''s a link to the Obama positions on unlimited immigration:

http://profiles.numbersusa.com/improfile.php3?DistSend=IL&VIPID=1162

You''ll also read in the following link how his biggest supporters ARE LOBBYING FIRMS!!--He''s as big of a joke on lobbying reform as McCain was in campaign finance reform. He gets support not only from the Pritzkers of Chicago, but the Crowns as well--this is a name synonomous with concrete and corruption...connected at the hip with General Dynamics for years, if memory serves, even at the time of the JFK assassination. He has the support of international bankers and their former Clinton officials.

Obama is a turkey! NAFTA, hypocrisy, a closet War Pig...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275

[prinzowhales]

Want to see how the Israel-firster Obama stands on amnesty? He voted for the amnesty bill that would forgive aggravated felons, give them amnesty and five-years of Income Tax forgiveness...He voted against a border fence. This is the same policy that the Foundations favor...He has voted for unlimited entry for work visas...

People dumb enough to buy the Obama message would be at home in the Hillary or Giuliani Open Cities camp.

[consciousnes]

If I had a choice between Obama and Clinton, I would pick Obama even though I don''t think he is ready for such a job. He needs much more experience, but he does not have the skeletons in the closet that the Clinton''s do.

[prinzowhales]

Same old political gang backing a new face. Smoot worked for Schumer--Israel-firster and a corruptionist. The Pritzker family that runs Hyatt is also backing him--without doubt, he is Israel''s dog. Just as the old Harriman sow backed Bill Clinton from Paris...and the Harriman interests and the Bush interests were always arm-in-arm....this tentacle of the Oligarchy is lifting up Obama.

[hwy71so]

Oh, I thought it was going to say Hillary was his backer...