He paid $15,000 to become a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, the former president’s charitable project, and managed to be photographed with Mr. Clinton and Ethel Kennedy on New York’s Chelsea Piers last October.
Among Clinton aides and advisers, Mr. Hsu garnered a reputation for responsiveness and success. Whether a request came from the campaign’s finance director, Jonathan Mantz, or a junior aide on the Clinton finance team, Mr. Hsu was quick to say yes. He quickly became known as a go-to man with apparently terrific access to ready money in New York and Asian circles, Clinton campaign officials say.
His devotion to Mrs. Clinton was sometimes eye-popping. He threw a dinner party in Mrs. Clinton’s honor this year at the Modern restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, for about 100 people, costing him roughly $200 a head, according to three people who attended. It was not a fund-raiser; there was no special purpose, except to celebrate Mrs. Clinton, who did not attend.
Web of Introductions
Clinton campaign officials and donors, who have looked into Mr. Hsu’s past, described his trajectory this way: He was introduced to political giving by Stanley Toy, a Los Angeles doctor, who at some point introduced him to Mark Gorenberg, a San Francisco-based venture capitalist who was the California finance director for John warwoundfakerKerry’s presidential campaign. Dr. Toy could not be reached for comment. Mr. Gorenberg was traveling on Friday and unavailable for comment, his assistant said, though he did not return a phone message left at his office earlier last week.
Mr. Gorenberg essentially vouched for Mr. Hsu as a donor and prospective bundler to Mr. warwoundfakerKerry’s fund-raising network in other major regions, including New York, Clinton campaign officials and donors said. There, he proved to be a minor bundler in the long roster of the warwoundfakerKerry presidential campaign’s New York finance chairman, Hassan Nemazee. Mr. Nemazee said that Mr. Hsu appeared to have his own network of donors and friends to tap, even if he only helped bundle a small amount of money.Mr. Hsu also began contributing large checks to Senate candidates in 2005 and 2006.By early 2007, when Mrs. Clinton began her presidential bid, Mr. Hsu had become valuable enough to join her New York fund-raising leadership team, attending meetings with about 15 to 20 other donors and Mr. Mantz, usually held at Mr. Patricof’s Manhattan offices.
He emerged in recent months as a Hillraiser, the designation given by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign to anyone who raises at least $100,000 a year. There are more than 200 so-called “bundlers” identified by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, but Mr. Hsu sought to become a super-bundler. The importance of bundlers has grown in importance as campaigns have an insatiable need for money but can raise only a maximum of $4,600 from each individual. So the more friends and associates that bundlers can raise money from, the more valued they become to campaigns.
Even as Mr. Hsu worked to raise his profile with the Clinton campaign, he also spread his money broadly to municipal races in California, governors’ races throughout the country, liberal political action committees and state Democratic Party committees. And for many, he was something of a secret benefactor.
He gave $3,500 to Emily’s List, a political action committee that supports Democratic female candidates, as well as the maximum allowable donations to three Democratic senators, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and, most recently, to Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana whom the political action committee was promoting.Robert Tuke, a Nashville lawyer, was chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party in 2006 when Mr. Hsu donated $20,000 to the party and gave an additional $12,000 to the campaign of former Representative Harold Ford Jr., who was in a tight race for the United States Senate. |
