McAuliffe paved way for Democratic fund raising

e-mail this story print this story Dan Hoover • McAuliffe paved way for Democratic fund raising (01/29/05) • GOP, Dems eyeing state for '08 (01/29/05) • The right hails a 'new friend' (01/16/05) • Graham, DeMint may differ on high court nominees (11/14/04) • Elite few both give and bundle (10/24/04)

The native of Syracuse, N.Y., will step down Feb. 10 as Democratic national chairman, despite attempts by some senior Democrats to keep him for at least another year. They have good reason. Defying predictions that the national Democratic Party would become a staggering dinosaur under 2002 campaign finance reform, McAuliffe instead built it into a veritable political ATM. He said that when he took over four years ago, the DNC was living from payroll to payroll. This year, the DNC is flush enough to pledge an unprecedented $5 million to help Virginia Lt. Gov. Timothy Kaine run for governor this year.

While they lost the presidential race and lost ground in Congress in 2004, the Democrats were done in by a lack of message, not resources. For the first time anyone can remember, the national Democratic Party raised more money than its Republican counterpart in '04, raking in $400 million, compared with $385 million for the Republican National Committee.

McAuliffe modernized the party's Internet contacts and fund raising. He expanded the list of reliable donors from about 400,000 to about 3 million. He says the average age of a DNC donor was 78 four years ago; today, it's roughly half that age.

Democrats had long depended on large "soft money" donations to keep up with Republicans, and after campaign finance reform, many doubted that they could match a far more extensive Republican fund-raising list of small donors.

But McAuliffe did it, in part by force of personality. He professes to loving fund raising. He reminds you of the kid who saw a pile of manure and immediately went looking for the pony. An effusive back-slapper, you can often hear him before you see him. But since his friend Bill Clinton left the White House, Democratic candidates have not been speaking with nearly as clear a voice.

That's where Virginia in '05 comes in. It's a quintessential red state, Southern and perpetually Republican in presidential elections. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry made early feints but did not compete here seriously. Values play big and could be the decisive front in a Virginia governor's race between Kaine and former Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore.

A practicing Roman Catholic, Kaine is being touted as a prototypical values Democrat who could win in the South, and elsewhere. He's pro-business and talks as openly as George W. Bush about his faith. In 1980, he took a year off from Harvard Law School for missionary work in Honduras. He describes politics as "part of the spiritual mission I am on."

"I do not cede faith or values issues to anyone, because that is the core of my life," Kaine said at a recent appearance with McAuliffe in this Washington suburb.

McAuliffe's potential successor, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, will have fence-mending to do in Virginia and elsewhere in the South. Dean teed off some Southern Democrats when, as a presidential candidate, he used the pickup truck-Confederate flag stereotype to talk about the kinds of voters Democrats needed to go after. Dean has lined up support from key Southern Democrats as part of his strategy to become chairman.

Other contenders include former Rep. Martin Frost, who is appealing to his Texas roots, and former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, who opposes abortion rights. Former Mayor Wellington Webb of Denver, who is black, is also running to head the party that got 90 percent of the black vote in November.

While some Democrats worry that Dean's sometimes acerbic nature and strong opposition to the war in Iraq could be problematic in this job, the former Vermont governor appears to have the most momentum. But more than half of the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee remained uncommitted two weeks before the vote, according to veteran Democratic activist Donna Brazile.

Meanwhile, look for the outgoing chairman on the speaking circuit, sometimes with former Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie.

McAuliffe, the father of five children ages 2 to 13, says he's already missed too many ballgames while working six and seven days a week.

If his wife, Dorothy, read in the papers that he was considering doing it again, "there would be no furniture left in my house" when he returned home, McAuliffe said, chuckling heartily.