Hillary Clinton Turns to Bill Clinton to Raise Campaign Funds
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is drawing on the star power of her husband, Bill Clinton, to help raise funds for her 2016 White House campaign, and the former president has embarked on a fundraising blitz reminiscent of his own presidential campaigns.
In December, Bill Clinton will make appearances at more than a dozen of the former secretary of state's events as her team seeks to tap into the 69-year-old's fame as one of the Democratic party's most prolific rainmakers, the Associated Press reported.
Early on in her second presidential bid, the former secretary of state had been careful not to overemphasize her husband's involvement in the campaign, but Bill Clinton has now slowly begun taking a larger public role, the newswire noted.
Last month, the former president introduced pop singer Katy Perry at a concert before the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson dinner, and he also accompanied the former New York senator to a party barbecue in the critical early-caucus state of Iowa last week, the AP added.
Together, the Clintons have cultivated a vast donor network over their 40 years in public life, and their fundraising methods today serve as a model for many other politicians and their supporters, according to the Washington Post.
Their biggest contributors include Haim Saban, who heads the Spanish-language Univision TV empire, and Saban's wife, Cheryl, the newspaper detailed, calculating that the couple alone has made more than three dozen contributions totaling $2.4 million to support the Clintons' races since 1992.
While Bill Clinton draws on his charisma to win over potential donors, his wife applied what Post writers Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger and Anu Narayanswamy dubbed the former first lady's "characteristic attentiveness."
"Hillary does not like to ask for money. It's not natural for her," Susie Tompkins Buell, the co-founder of Esprit and a close friend of the Clintons, told the newspaper. "But she's got really good people who work for her who speak for her, and she's very, very appreciative when she knows someone has done something for her. And you know it's sincere."
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