R. Davis: Wining, Dining And Reassuring GOP Funders
Just hours after Sen. John McCain made a surprise announcement Wednesday that he was temporarily suspending his presidential campaign to help work out a bipartisan deal in Congress on the financial crisis, his campaign manager Rick Davis dined with about a dozen top New York-based fundraisers at the chic 21 Club in Manhattan.
The dinner meeting, according to an attendee, included an update on McCain’s decision to return to Washington today, criticism of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. for failing to act more decisively earlier, and calls for more fundraising for the party by leading New York money harvesters.
The event was hosted by one of the GOP’s top fundraisers Woody Johnson IV, who heads the Johnson Cos. and has raised more than $500,000 for the McCain campaign.
The dinner also drew Lewis Eisenberg, the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee who leads McCain-Palin Victory 2008, a joint fundraising effort by the RNC and a legal account of the McCain campaign; Donald Marron, the chairman and chief executive of Lightyear Capital, a private equity fund; and Patrick Durkin, a managing director of J. Fitzgibbons, a private equity firm.
Even though campaign officials were temporarily told to suspend their fundraising and other activities per McCain’s instructions, Johnson told the assembled guests that they “ought to redouble their efforts” to make sure that an upcoming fundraiser in New York on Oct 14 is a success, according to the attendee.
(The funds that will be raised in New York, like other events post GOP convention when McCain opted to take $84 million in public funding for the general election, go largely to the RNC, but a campaign run legal and accounting fund is still allowed to accept some monies.)
Davis and Durkin, a long time GOP fundraiser who has recently also been advising the campaign on economic issues, took the lead in the dinner discussions, focusing on the reasoning behind McCain's decision to return to Washington, according to NJ's source. Several of the fundraisers had also attended an earlier economic briefing, which the campaign arranged to provide McCain input and advice on the Wall Street financial crisis.
Paulson’s management of the crisis drew “a lot criticism” from the guests, according to the attendee. “There was a feeling that he (Paulson) didn’t do a very good job,” said the attendee. Until Paulson announced his $700 billion bailout plan just days ago, he “didn’t have a long term strategy.”
In the wake of another New York Times story highlighting his firm's lobbying activities for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Davis pulled out of a lunch yesterday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. The forum, part of a series, provides journalists an opportunity to ask questions of campaign officials. The McCain campaign said at the time that Davis would not attend because he was "heading on the trail."
(National Journal's PETER STONE)