Clinton Aims for $15 Million Haul
Feb 7, 2007— -- In what might be a an effort to lower expectations, a top aide in the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., predicted Wednesday that the former first lady would raise twice as much money in the first three months of her 2008 campaign as former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., did in the first quarter of his 2004 presidential bid.
Senior Clinton adviser Ann Lewis told ABC News, "It's a high goal. It doubles the highest that anybody raised in '04.
"We're thinking positively. We're thinking we've got the campaign, we've got the team and I think there's a lot of interest and excitement out there and we feel we can get there," Lewis said, speaking to reporters following a meeting of Clinton's fundraising team in Washington.
Clinton will try to to hit her fundraising mark by using "bundlers," or mega contributors, who go beyond the $2,300 personal donation cap by raking in tens of millions of dollars through associates and friends.
The second-term senator has refused to reveal the names of her big bundlers -- who have been tasked to raise upward of $1 million apiece -- and in so doing has come under heavy criticism. The Washington Post's editorial board Monday called the Clinton campaign's $1 million bundler goal "appalling."
Lewis avoided answering a question about whether Clinton would disclose the names of her bundlers as President Bush did in both of his presidential campaigns and as her nomination rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pledged to do.
"You'll have to check with the people who are actually doing the work of putting the finance team together," said Lewis. "I'm not part of that."
Clinton's presidential campaign revealed its fundraising expectations on a day when the senator and her top campaign advisers met with some of her biggest fundraisers and supporters at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington.
In addition to meeting with the candidate herself, Clinton's supporters heard from three top aides: campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, pollster Mark Penn and media consultant Mandy Grunwald.
In the closed-door session, Doyle discussed "winning the talent primary," while Penn detailed state and independent polling data showing Clinton leading in early-nominating and caucus states.
Grunwald showed the audience a collection of the senator's 2006 Senate campaign ads, as well as some of the videos appearing on Clinton's presidential campaign Web site, according to Lewis.
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