Clinton network helps bankroll McAuliffe

The donor base includes guests who stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom during Bill Clinton’s presidency, controversial Los Angeles film and television moguls, a once vocal critic of Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton.

Some of Hillary Clinton’s benefactors, whose individual donations to the then-senator were capped at $2,300 per election, under federal law, have given McAuliffe single contributions of more than 100 times that amount. Virginia places no limits on political donations.

“If there is a Clinton candidate for governor of Virginia, it’s Terry McAuliffe, no doubt about that,” said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato.

McAuliffe has also given financial help to the former first lady. His campaign paid $31,000 this year to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign for e-mail list rentals and office equipment. McAuliffe spokeswoman Lis Smith said the payments were not meant to help the now U.S. secretary of state pay off her remaining millions in campaign debt.

The single largest McAuliffe patron is television entrepreneur and outspoken Clinton backer Haim Saban, who has given the Virginia candidate $276,000. Saban was involved in what The New York Times last week described as a botched scheme to install California Rep. Jane Harman as chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee. In return, she reportedly agreed to seek leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists under U.S. Justice Department investigation for espionage, the newspaper said.

The second biggest donation, $250,000, came from real estate developer and Hollywood film producer Steve Bing, an activist for liberal causes whose personal legal spats have made him a tabloid fixture.

Seven of McAuliffe’s big donors stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom during the Clinton presidency. Another smaller donor — BET founder Robert Johnson — raised ire for a 2008 campaign trail speech on behalf of Hillary Clinton in which he likened Obama to Sidney Poitier’s character from “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and alluded to Obama’s past drug use.

Bill Clinton donated $10,000 to McAuliffe. Hillary Clinton is barred under the Hatch Act from political activity.

The web of wealthy Clinton backers is helping the former Democratic National Committee chief pay for a well-staffed, highly organized campaign. But the money’s connection to far-off billionaires and controversial public figures threatens to create a backlash.

McAuliffe’s two party rivals — Del. Brian Moran and state Sen. Creigh Deeds — are increasingly taking aim at his war chest as the June 9 primary approaches. The winner will face former Virginia Attorney General Robert McDonnell, a Republican.

Both Democrats are framing McAuliffe’s donor base, and him, as divorced from Virginia life and politics. Though the Clinton network helped inflate McAuliffe’s first-quarter fundraising to $4 million, less than 20 percent of that money came from inside Virginia.

“I’m glad that a lot of his donors are people who can’t vote for him,” said Moran campaign manager Andrew Roos, who added that the cash lead hasn’t elevated McAuliffe in polls.

Smith countered that McAuliffe has also raised more money from Virginians during that period than either of the two Democrats, and that Virginians make up the single largest part of his donor base.

She declined to address individual contributors, instead calling them “major Democratic donors who’ve given to candidates across the country, including Barack Obama.”