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Talking in the 'universal language' |
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July 27, 2000
WASHINGTON (AP) - If music is the universal language and money talks, Democrats hope combining the two will produce volumes of fresh donations this fall that can be spent directly on their political candidates. The Democratic National Committee is staging several low-priced concerts to fill the party coffers ahead of November's U.S. election, hoping to lure in new donors willing to fork over just dlrs 50 or dlrs 100 rather than six-figures. To aid the cause, Democrats are calling on the likes of legendary singer Barbra Streisand, male group Boyz II Men and comedian Whoopi Goldberg. "We're going to make it exciting for them to give to the DNC," said Peter Knight, the former campaign manager for President Bill Clinton and chief of staff for Al Gore, who recently took over the party's fund-raising. The experiment comes as Democrats try to catch up with a Republican direct-mail fund-raising machine that has given the Republicans a marked edge in so-called hard money. Those are the small donations that fall under federal limits and can be spent directly on candidates. Through June 30, the Republican Party had dlrs 21.1 million in hard money in the bank, compared to just dlrs 9.3 million for Democrats. Democratic officials hope to build on the success of their May 24 fund-raiser that brought in a record dlrs 26.5 million and attracted more than 12,000 people to hear Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz and Robin Williams. While the event had a top ticket of dlrs 500,000, it also sold thousands of tickets at dlrs 50. The electricity generated by the sold-out arena had Gore afterwards talking about developing similar events to both raise money for the party and energize thousands of potential supporters, Democrats said. Several events will be held in major cities, beginning with a concert at the end of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles on Aug. 17. The event is to be hosted by Goldberg, with entertainment by Streisand, Enrique Iglesias, Baby Face and Boyz II Men. Party officials hope that event will raise more than dlrs 2 million. A New York City event is planned the following month. The Republican National Committee raises so much hard money because of its huge list of small donors willing to write checks in response to direct mail solicitations or phone calls. The party has a list of 570,000 donors, including 140,000 who gave this year for the first time. The average contribution to the Republicans is dlrs 99.63. |
