Rudy Guiliani’s Presidential campaign made an unfortunate mistake and misplaced their 180 page comprehensive plan. It fell into the hands of a Republican that is sympathetic to one of Rudy’s rivals and they turned it over to the New York Daily News.
The remarkably detailed dossier sets out the budgets, schedules and fund-raising plans that will underpin the former New York mayor’s presidential campaign – as well as his aides’ worries that personal and political baggage could scuttle his run.
At the center of his efforts: a massive fund-raising push to bring in at least $100 million this year, with a scramble for at least $25 million in the next three months alone.
The loss of the battle plan is a remarkable breach in the high-stakes game of presidential politics and a potentially disastrous blunder for Giuliani in the early stages of his campaign.
I’m sure the entire dossier is fascinating. But the part that caught my eye concerned fundraising. I am going to quote it at length.
The detailed fund-raising plans depict a campaign scrambling to catch up with the organizational advantage of Giuliani’s Republican rivals, particularly Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Some of the leading figures in American business and finance appear as the “prospective leadership” of Giuliani’s campaign, and their names appear elsewhere with instructions for Giuliani to call and seek their support. Two of the top figures on Giuliani’s list, New Jersey mega-fund-raisers Lew Eisenberg and Larry Bathgate, have already signed on with McCain, as has another Giuliani target, FedEx CEO Fred Smith.
In a memo that appears in the dossier, Giuliani aides Dickerson and Roy Bailey urge him to court financier Henry Kravis particularly avidly.
“You need him to be a Wall Street industry leader,” the memo says.
McCain announced Kravis’ support last month.
The plan also anticipates his recruiting top GOP fund-raiser Cathy Blaney in New York on a retainer of $260,000 and her Florida counterpart, Ann Herberger, at $216,000. But between the plan’s preparation in the fall and today, Blaney became the chief fund-raiser for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, while Herberger reportedly has signed on to the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Other business leaders targeted by Giuliani remain publicly uncommitted: Paramount CEO Brad Grey, Giuliani’s talent agent after 9/11, is envisioned as leading a “celebrities” fund-raising arm; former Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton would raise money from professional athletes. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, PepsiCo chief Dawn Hudson and Goldman Sachs president Lloyd Blankfein are also listed as “industry leaders.”
The documents depict hedge fund tycoon Paul Singer, a close Giuliani ally, playing a central role in his fund-raising operation.
I don’t notice any plan in there for raising money from ordinary people. You know, farmers, construction workers, country doctors, small businesswomen. I see a bunch of ‘Wall Street industry leaders’. I’d like to see the Republicans figure out the power of people-powered politics. But that is just not going to happen. Rudy Guiliani’s plans may have been compromised by this catastrophic leak, but it shows pretty clearly how you go about becoming the GOP nominee for President.
Giuliani fund-raiser Dickerson served as a deputy to the chief fund-raiser of George Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, and the papers suggest Giuliani will model at least the fund-raising portion of his campaign explicitly on Bush’s. Several pages appear to be Bush-Cheney campaign internal budget documents and are marked “confidential.”
Bush divided his main fund-raisers into “Rangers,” who raised at least $200,000 each, and “Pioneers,” who raised $100,000. Giuliani’s metaphor is baseball: “Team Captains” are responsible for $1 million each in contributions, and “MVPs” bring in $200,000 each. Bush’s “Pioneers” become Giuliani’s “All-Stars,” and those who raise $50,000 are “Sluggers.”
The Republicans make pretenses to being the party of the south, of the religiously conservative, of the midwest…but they are really just the party of FedEx, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo., Paramount, and News Corp. I wish more people really understood the true nature of the Republican Party.