Say what you like about President Bill Clinton – and many things have been said about him over the years, flattering and otherwise – but one thing is certain: he isn’t cheap. On Thursday he travelled to Chicago to headline two fundraising events for his wife Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign where top donors were required to bundle $50,000 each for the privilege of hearing him speak.
Not that the main donors hosting the event – billionaire JB Pritzker, entrepreneur Matt Moog, venture capitalist Howard Tullman and other members of Chicago’s business elite – would have balked at having to raise such a sum. At least for the price, they were granted a ringside seat at the making of US political history.
Clinton’s appearance at the fundraisers were the first time that he has been publicly rolled out in support of his wife’s bid for the White House in this election cycle. Until this week, Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn-based campaign had kept him firmly in the background.
He was present on Roosevelt Island in June when she formally announced her candidacy, but even then he was limited to waving from the sidelines and kept away from the podium. Since then there has been nothing; as Bill himself has put it: “My role should primarily be as a backstage adviser until we get much, much closer to the election.”
That the first task he should be asked to perform in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 iteration should be raising cash surprises nobody – he is, after all, the human equivalent of an ATM. “His money-raising powers are off the chart,” said Matt Bennett, an aide in President Clinton’s White House who worked on both his presidential campaigns. “Most candidates dislike the job but he actually enjoys it – and when he is in close quarters with donors he has such charm that they tend to do whatever he asks them to.”
Bill Mahoney, a Chicago attorney and “enthusiastic” Clinton backer who attended one of the fundraisers, told the Guardian that having the former president in the room was powerful because “he is smart, he knows the issues, he’s energetic, he can remind the base here of the economic successes that occurred when he was president. And he can be a foundation for what Secretary Clinton wants to do with the economy.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/18/hillary-clinton-campaign-bill-not-so-secret-weapon?CMP=ema_565
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