LAKEWOOD, N.J. — Lawrence E. Bathgate II is on the phone, tallying contributions for President Bush's 152nd fundraiser, which he is co-chairing. "He'll have his 10 by next week," he says. Another man, he says, has "eight, not four," which is an unexpected surprise. Another "is coming out of the hospital today. He's good for 10."
Bathgate is counting in the thousands, of course. The checks arrive at his law office in packages, bundles of contributions of no more than $2,000, collected by friends, associates and business contacts.
Multimillionaire lawyer, developer, banker and veteran GOP fundraiser, Bathgate is one of hundreds of volunteers who have helped Bush's reelection campaign amass more than $175 million in nine months, the most ever collected in a presidential race. Much of the money has been collected at fundraisers, like the one featuring Vice President Dick Cheney that Bathgate helped organize last week.
Now that the Bush campaign has reached its record-breaking goal, it is ending its string of fundraising events headlined by Bush and Cheney. On Monday, the president will appear at a final fundraising lunch in Charlotte, Va.
Bathgate says he has collected more than $500,000 for the campaign, and his techniques offer a glimpse into the Bush money machine and how it proved so successful. He not only tapped people he knew for money, he persuaded them to reach out to others. Before long, his Rolodex expanded exponentially.
The Bush campaign, meanwhile, has kept track of how much he and other major fundraisers collected,creating a type of rivalry among them.
"They're doing such an amazing job of getting people's competitive juices going," said Kirk Jowers, a Republican election lawyer in Washington. "As I talk to people around town, it's like watching my daughter and her friends sell Girl Scout cookies. Who can raise the most money?"
Bathgate is just one of 187 so-called Rangers who have each collected $200,000 or more in contributions. Another 268 Pioneers have each raised $100,000. And 32 Mavericks, who are 40 or younger, have funneled at least $50,000 to the president's campaign.
These efforts have given Bush a huge financial edge over Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee. But Bush's national finance director, Travis Thomas, said the campaign would continue raising money.
At its current rate through direct mail solicitations alone, the campaign will reach the $200-million mark by summer.
Kerry recently began a similar fundraising operation, which helped his campaign amass more than $40 million in the first three months of this year. That was more than any other Democratic presidential candidate has collected in a quarter, easily surpassing the almost $15 million raised by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the last three months of 2003.
Since Kerry began his candidacy last year, he has raised at least $65 million.
Under federal law, individuals can give no more than $2,000 to the presidential candidates. It is this limit that makes fundraisers with large networks of contributors so important.
Top Bush fundraisers bundle hundreds of donations in personal checks or credit card receipts -- allowing contributors to amass airline miles -- and send them to the campaign with a personal tracking number so they get credit for the money.
One Washington lobbyist and Ranger, who did not want his name used because his comments might anger the Bush campaign, said he was raising as much as possible for the president "so my life is easier at the convention." He said the top fundraisers would get the best hotel rooms and buses, and special access to a hospitality suite in New York at the Republican National Convention.
"From my perspective, it's worth it," the lobbyist said. "I might take a client with me. It's kind of an investment, knowing what's coming at me."
For Bathgate, 64, raising money -- and spending it -- is a way of life. He has raised money for charities, the arts and education. Once, he was on the board of eight different schools at the same time.
A self-described pack rat, he bought Thomas Jefferson's dining room table at auction years ago, but it is now in a warehouse. English sport paintings adorn his office. A baseball signed by all-time great Dodger pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale is stuffed into a crowded shelf, a collectible Bathgate no longer remembers acquiring.
He was a millionaire several times over by the time he turned 30. He has had mostly ups -- and one publicized downfall in the early 1990s when federal regulators sued him over $21 million in defaulted loans.
Those bad days are behind him. He travels from New Jersey to New York City by helicopter to check on his investment in a merchant bank, lives in an oceanfront house that once belonged to the Bristol family of drug company giant Bristol- Myers Squibb, and has a thriving land business in the mid-Atlantic.
