Running for president takes a lot of money and a successful candidate will inevitably wind up raising cash from some questionable sources. This morning there are two articles about where Hillary Clinton is getting her cash. And those two sources are about as distinct from each other as possible. The Hill reports Sen. Clinton digs deep into D.C. donor pockets, while the L.A. Times finds An unlikely treasure-trove of donors for Clinton in New York’s Chinatown.
Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door.
And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.
All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate — Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton’s campaign treasury.
Clinton has been shaking down local Chinese neighborhood associations, including at least one with a reputation for human trafficking.
Meanwhile, in another world:
New fundraising data shows that Beltway insiders who had been on the fence are flocking to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign as she has maintained her strong lead in the polls, performed well in debates and made few mistakes.
Clinton raised $1 million from Washington, D.C. donors during the third quarter of 2007, far more than any other presidential candidate and about twice as much as her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), according to data compiled by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Clinton has seen her fundraising numbers in D.C. remain steady over the last few months, while Obama’s have dropped precipitously, an indication that the inside-the-Beltway political community is gravitating toward Clinton.
Obama has sworn off accepting donations from registered lobbyists, and that partly explains the disparity. But the recent change is more a feature of common wisdom. In September, Hillary became unbeatable in the Beltway’s Hivemind.
Krumholz said that Clinton raised 7 percent of her D.C. money in July, 20 percent in August, and 73 percent in September.
“There are a huge number of donors who simply want to bet on the winner,” she said.
A detailed look at any candidate’s donors will open possibilities for critique, but these two articles tell a story. And it is not a good story for the Clintons. The Clintons are especially vulnerable to accusations that they are raising money from Asian-Americans in an illegal way. In 1996, the Clintons ran into trouble with donations from the People’s Republic of China and Al Gore raised money at a Buddhist temple. It is not a positive news story for the Clintons to be found shaking down Chinatown dishwashers for thousand dollar contributions.
Neither is it a good story for them to be the Beltway Establishment’s pick. Washington DC is incredibly unpopular right now, with both the Congress and the president polling at historic lows.
Hillary certainly looks inevitable. But looks can be deceiving.
