Kerry is setting a fast pace in fund-raising sweep
Presidential contender trying to score big for March finance report
By Glen Johnson
Boston Globe Staff
3/13/2003
Senator John F. Kerry is pushing a financial vacuum cleaner across the country this week, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for his presidential campaign at major fund-raisers in New York, San Francisco, and Boston.
A fund-raiser last night at the Sheraton Boston Hotel grossed more than $2 million, according to organizers, which the campaign said was a record amount raised in a single night from donations by individuals.
On Tuesday night, a crowd of more than 650 people gathered in New York under the soaring, vaulted ceiling of Cipriani, a former bank turned function hall in midtown Manhattan, for a reception that grossed nearly $1 million.
Earlier that evening, Kerry snared more than $200,000 in little more than an hour from 80 supporters at the plush Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue. ''It was $1,000 to come and $2,000 if you didn't come,'' one attendee joked, noting the recent doubling of the legal limit on campaign donations.
Last night's event came two days after Kerry loyalists were invited to the Back Bay home of Bruce A. Percelay, president of the Mount Vernon Co., a real estate firm, for a more intimate affair that raised more than $100,000.
In remarks to the hometown audience Kerry said: ''This campaign is about which party has the ideas to make America safer, stronger, and more secure in the 21st century. And if that is the test, then book the U-Haul, because George Bush is moving out. Just because the Supreme Court of the United States made the wrong decision in 2000 doesn't mean we have to live with it for another six years, my friends.''
The senator received an unusual introduction, in which his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, broke with staff recommendations and lectured the crowd about the importance of early testing for prostate cancer. The senator had surgery Feb. 12 to remove a cancerous prostate gland.
''I'm not supposed to do this, but I couldn't stand having so many men in front of me with their wives and not try to do something to save their lives,'' Heinz Kerry said to scattered applause.
Those at the Sheraton event included Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, state Senator Marc Pacheco of Taunton, former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich, and Niki Tsongas, widow of former senator Paul E. Tsongas, whom Kerry replaced in Congress and who was the last Massachusetts Democrat to run for president.
Tomorrow, Kerry returns to California for the second time in two weeks, for another big fund-raiser at a hotel in downtown San Francisco.
On the stump, Kerry speaks as a reluctant participant in the scramble for campaign cash.
''We're forced into, obviously, raising money, but that's not what the campaign is about,'' he said Monday after touring a worker-training site in Harlem, N.Y., before his fund-raising events.
Behind closed doors, though, the Massachusetts Democrat is engaged in a nonstop effort to post a high total when the first quarter of presidential campaign fund-raising ends March 31.
Kerry aides speculate privately that Senator John Edwards of North Carolina may lead the pack of Democratic contenders when the reports are released to the public April 15, but they are also anxious to gauge the progress of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.
The campaigns are trying to set public expectations for one another in advance of the reports. The most successful candidates are expected to raise $3 million to $7 million during the first three months of this year.
In addition to fund-raising, Kerry is continuing an aggressive effort to lock up political supporters in early primary states.
In New York, Kerry received an unexpectedly early endorsement from Mark Green, the city's former public advocate, who most recently lost to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican.
Green's Democratic primary campaign against Fernando Ferrer was criticized by some minority groups as racist, and the Kerry team was quick to deny a report in Newsday this week that Green would serve as cochairman of Kerry's New York state steering committee. Instead, aides said the committee was still being formulated.
''He's among the top Jewish candidates running for president,'' Green said of Kerry, joking about the senator's newly discovered Jewish roots. ''To beat a team as ruthless as [President] Bush and [White House counselor Karl] Rove requires someone of his toughness.''
Among the guests at the Regency Hotel was David Dinkins, former New York mayor. A Kerry aide greeted Dinkins at the hotel door and escorted him into the event.
Kerry then asked Dinkins to squeeze into the back seat of his car for the ride to Cipriani.
''I'm assessing,'' Dinkins said before riding off with Kerry. ''I haven't made a judgment yet.''
The Cipriani fund-raiser was arranged by, among others, Peter Stamos, who served as chief of staff to former senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey; Michael DelGuidice, who filled a similar role for former New York governor Mario Cuomo; and Alfred E. Smith IV, grandson and namesake of a former New York governor.
Contributors included Orin S. Kramer, an investment banker and major Democratic donor.
He has been described by a website devoted to New Jersey politics, politicsnj.com, as ''the man whose ring all potential Democratic presidential candidates must kiss.''
In an interview, Kramer said he knew that Kerry had political potential when he won annual speaking contests at their alma mater, Yale University.
''He knows his stuff, he's built the best organization, and he's a talented candidate,'' Kramer said of his former classmate.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A3 of the Boston Globe on 3/13/2003.
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