A Run for the Money
Spitzer's Sparring With Wall Street Doesn't Hinder Fundraising for His Gubernatorial Campaign
By Brooke A. Masters and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page E01
NEW YORK
How do you raise $50 million when you've spent the past three years alienating some of the biggest political donors in America?
That's the dilemma faced by New York Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer, who is running for governor in 2006 on the strength of his high-profile investigations of Wall Street and the financial-services industry.
So far, he's doing quite well, thank you. At the last report in mid-January, he had $7.9 million on hand and had raised $3.4 million in the previous six months. But the bulk of his money is coming from traditionally Democratic sources -- unions, trial lawyers and Hollywood -- though there are some investors and hedge fund managers in the mix.
Large donors include film moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein and their relatives ($100,000 last February), mutual fund manager Mario J. Gabelli ($24,000 in December), and class-action law firm Pomerantz Haudek ($29,000 over three years). A group of class-action plaintiffs' lawyers quickly pulled together $100,000 after Spitzer spoke to their conference in New York in March, said Mark J. Proctor, president of the Florida firm Levin, Papantonio.
"The money is coming from an extremely broad section of the population," said Janice Shorenstein, co-founder of Women for Spitzer, "as far-reaching on the bottom as it is at the top of the economic spectrum. It comes from every part of New York state as well as the rest of the country."...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32847-2005Apr6.html