By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: February 2, 2010
Moments after arriving at an Upper West Side duplex for a gathering of Democrats two weeks ago, Orin Kramer, a hedge-fund manager, was surrounded by angry supporters of Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand. One by one, they demanded to know why he was encouraging Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman, to run for Senate in New York.
“He is not a real New Yorker,” one person who was there said. Another warned that a Ford candidacy “would only hurt the party.” Sarah Kovner, the former Clinton administration official who hosted the event and is a staunch backer of Ms. Gillibrand, was especially blunt: “We don’t need this primary,” she told Mr. Kramer, according to people who heard the conversation.
Mr. Kramer, a top fund-raiser for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in New York, stood his ground. Mr. Ford, he told guests, “is a friend, and I will be supportive of him.”
Nowhere is the intensity of the clash between Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Ford more evident than inside Manhattan’s sprawling penthouses and boardrooms, where wealthy families and titans of finance are being stroked, wooed and pressured to choose sides in what could be the marquee political battle of 2010.
Mr. Ford has given himself 30 days to decide whether to challenge Ms. Gillibrand. And that has touched off a war for the city’s richest donors, especially those on Wall Street, as both camps race to nail down financial support and demonstrate the breadth of their Rolodexes.
Ms. Gillibrand’s top fund-raisers recently called an urgent meeting to map out a strategy for fending off Mr. Ford.
The senator and her would-be challenger have reached out to New York’s most influential Democratic contributors, sometimes within hours of each other. One Democratic donor received a call from Ms. Gillibrand one day and was invited to dine with Mr. Ford at the Four Seasons the next. The aggressive efforts have already divided loyalties within one of the city’s most powerful families.
Senate races in New York are notoriously expensive, but a Ford-Gillibrand contest could shatter previous records: Both are young thoroughbreds in the fund-raising world, skilled at raising huge sums. Mr. Ford collected $15 million for his 2006 Senate bid in Tennessee, much of it from New York. Even without a declared opponent, Ms. Gillibrand has already amassed $7 million for a Senate run in New York.
Their firepower is now concentrated on the financial industry, traditionally the biggest source of campaign contributions in New York. Both are eager to lock up a handful of the same big-name, deep-pocketed Democrats, like Robert Wolf, the chief executive of the United States investment banking division of UBS group, and Ronald O. Perelman, the billionaire financier and chairman of Revlon.
In recent weeks, both Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Ford have sought to portray themselves as allies of the financial industry, even as they acknowledge public outrage over extravagant executive compensation deals.
Mr. Ford, a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch, is promoting himself as unabashedly pro-business, calling for a big reduction in the corporate tax rate and for exempting many businesses from payroll taxes, while Ms. Gillibrand has expressed misgivings about a bank tax proposed by President Obama that is opposed by Wall Street firms.
A friend of Mr. Ford’s who works in finance and contributes to Democratic candidates was surprised to receive a call recently from Ms. Gillibrand, who requested a personal meeting. When this person expressed support for Mr. Ford, Ms. Gillibrand pressed her request anyway, said a person with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, for fear of offending the senator.
The competitiveness between Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Ford in the corridors of New York business became apparent a few weeks ago, when she convened a last-minute meeting of her campaign finance committee at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, whose roster of corporate clients includes Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
Mr. Ford had just acknowledged his interest in the Senate seat, and Ms. Gillibrand wanted to rally her biggest fund-raisers. At one point, a member of the committee asked how many of the nearly 80 people in the room had donated to Mr. Ford when he ran for Senate in Tennessee. Half the people in the room raised their hands, according to a participant who attended the meeting.
Ms. Gillibrand was unknown to much of Wall Street a year ago when she was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton after she became secretary of state. What some executives did know gave them pause: She twice voted against the federal bailout of banks during the financial crisis.
But Ms. Gillibrand has spent hours on the phone with finance executives, soliciting their views. When Glenn Hutchins, the co-chief executive of Silver Lake, a private equity firm, sent Ms. Gillibrand a 75-page PowerPoint presentation on the causes of the banking meltdown, he was unsure if she would ever read it. She not only did, but she also responded with a long list of follow-up questions. “I was very impressed by that,” he said.
Her persistent style and attention to detail has garnered high-profile contributors: Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, Gary D. Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs; and Meyer S. Frucher, vice chairman of Nasdaq OMX Group, have donated to her Senate campaign, according to filings. Mr. Dimon said that Ms. Gillibrand is “hard-working, constructive and understands the issues.”
Yet many of those who said they were supporting Ms. Gillibrand were quick to praise Mr. Ford, and some privately said that they might contribute to both candidates. Marc Lasry, the billionaire hedge fund manager, held a fund-raiser for Ms. Gillibrand at his home a few weeks ago, and he pledged to back her. Still, he called Mr. Ford “a very bright guy — I like him a lot.”
With Mr. Ford still undecided, many of his backers are unwilling to speak publicly on his behalf, for fear of alienating a sitting senator. But at least three major Democratic fund-raisers have indicated they will support him if he runs: Steven Rattner, the founder of the private equity firm Quandrangle; Kenneth B. Lerer, the media investor who co-founded The Huffington Post and Mr. Kramer, who helps manage the hedge fund Boston Provident, L.P.
“In the event that he is a candidate, he will be my candidate,” Mr. Kramer said. “The appetite for change that helped produce Barack Obama’s presidency is even deeper today.”
The prospect of a Ford-Gillibrand primary has already divided the Tisch family, whose holdings include the Loews Corporation and the New York Giants. Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, has encouraged Mr. Ford to run for Senate.
Her brother-in-law, Andrew H. Tisch, co-chairman of Loews, considers Mr. Ford “a social friend of mine” but said in an interview that he was backing Ms. Gillibrand. Asked if he had discussed the race with his sister-in-law, he replied: “Merryl has her point of view, and I have mine.” |
