Forced Recess For Political Fundraising

The General Assembly's return to Richmond this week signals thestart of the winter hiatus in political fundraising, a time whenVirginia's vast money machine shuts down temporarily to recharge forthe fall election season.

This year, the brief annual ban on fundraising by legislators andstatewide officials happens to affect nearly all of the big names inthe 2001 elections, with one notable exception: Democraticgubernatorial candidate Mark R. Warner, of Alexandria, who is free ofthe legal restraints and can keep adding to his vast stockpile ofcash.

But everyone else must give it up for 46 days, starting yesterday,and then allow donors a little bit of a March breather on top ofthat. "Basically it's a dead zone from Jan. 10 to April 1," saidlongtime GOP operative Dick Leggitt, who advises Lt. Gov. John H.Hager in the two-way race for the Republican gubernatorialnomination. "Whatever you have for the fight, you have to havealready in the bank."

Which is why Hager and the rest of the state's politicalestablishment were furiously dialing for dollars, cajolingprospective financial backers in private meetings and at cocktailparties and dinners, right up to the deadline.

House of Delegates Speaker S. Vance Wilkins Jr. (R-Amherst) hosteda downtown Richmond gala Tuesday, just before he was scheduled togavel open the legislature the next day. Democratic lawmakers alsohad a fundraising bash Tuesday night.

Wilkins knows all too well how precious money can be for veteranpols and upstart candidates alike. After all, he and a few othersstruggled mightily to build a Republican legislative majority, inpart by raising money at teensy $5-a-head fundraisers in ruralbackwaters. That cash would later pay for a district-by-districttakeover of state politics.

Now, after the GOP's historic legislative victories of 1999,Wilkins hasn't forgotten those hard lessons; he presides over afundraising apparatus designed to preserve the Republican majorityand add to it.

Others are just as zealous, for different reasons. Hager raised$300,000 at a fundraiser in November, while nomination rival Mark L.Earley, the state's attorney general, collected roughly the sameamount at a mid-December event.

Last Thursday, with the dead zone looming, Earley held a low-dollar event at the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon and followed upthe next night with a $200,000 event in his hometown of Chesapeake.

"We've been on a pretty aggressive track," said Quintin C.Kendall, a top Earley campaign aide.

No venue is unexplored in the hot pursuit of political money.Kendall said Earley's team raised $7,500 to $10,000 from an Internetsolicitation, and politicians from Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) --who held his pre-session fundraiser late last week -- on downroutinely set aside whole chunks of time to work the telephones,coaxing money from contributors.

Where does it all go? To consultants, pollsters, direct-mailexperts and other political pros, many of whom are based in theWashington area and are therefore quite pricey. Not only do the threecandidates aiming for the top of their tickets hire them, so do mostof those running for lesser ticket spots that will be decided inJune, either at the GOP convention or the Democratic Party's primaryelection.

Thus, a politician like Earley can work for more than a year andraise $1.5 million, but when the new year rolls around, he may haveonly $400,000 in the bank, which is what his aides said he willreport officially in just a few days. Hager, too, is in thatballpark, with perhaps as much as $500,000 in cash left after histireless fundraising, aides said.

Meanwhile, Warner, who doesn't have the distraction -- or theexpense -- of a nomination battle, celebrated his 46th birthday inDecember with a series of events that pushed his cash total to $1.8million for the final quarter of 2000. Awestruck Democrats across thestate say Warner is starting the new year with well over $2.5 millionin cash.

If those preliminary estimates hold -- with Hager and Earleyroughly at parity, but Warner galloping far, far ahead -- thecandidates' official fundraising reports will hold major long-termimplications for the tempo of the governor's race.

Warner will have more than buried the few lingering concerns abouthis fundraising prowess. The millionaire businessman is determinednot to lavish $10 million of his own money on this year's race, as hedid in the 1996 U.S. Senate election, and it surely looks like hewon't have to.

By the same token, there will be extreme consternation inRepublican ranks. True, Earley and Hager will have banked most ofwhat they need for the June convention, but judging by money alone,neither one has sparked much enthusiasm so far -- either in his ownright or as the stronger alternative to the other guy.

Once the three financial reports are out, Earley and Hager maywell wish they could be raising some bucks like Warner.

But Steve Calos, who runs the Virginia branch of Common Cause,said the 1997 law that banned in-session fundraising was "a hugestep" toward reform that appropriately prevents elected officialsfrom accepting donations in the special-interest swirl of theassembly session.

Yet, even with that ban, political activists are bracing for yetanother record cycle of fundraising and spending.

"The donor community is not pleased this year," said Calos, whosegroup is advocating a series of additional reforms in the state'scampaign finance laws. "Candidates are asking donors for more andcoming around more often, asking for contributions.

"It's just getting more expensive," Calos added. "The fear thisyear is how much Mark Warner will spend -- and whether theRepublicans will feel forced to also spend that much."