(NOTE: The analysis below is based on the 285 individuals disclosed as Pioneers and Rangers by the Bush campaign as of September 30, 2003. On November 1, 2003, the campaign released the names of 24 additional Pioneers and Rangers and on November 30, 2003 released the names of another 42 Pioneers and Rangers bringing the total number for the 2004 campaign up to 351.)

Thanks in large part to 242 wealthy “Pioneers” who bundled together at least $100,000 worth of $1,000 checks, George W. Bush shattered presidential fundraising records in 2000. With the 2004 election more than a year off, 285 wealthy individuals already have raised at least $100,000 for Bush’s reelection, including 100 “Rangers” who already have raised $200,000 or more. Several factors are helping Bush shatter his own record. The 2002 “McCain-Feingold” Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act increased federal contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000, doubling the value of the Pioneer network overnight. Bush also had an uphill battle last time, having to defeat an incumbent Vice President after fending off a strong primary challenge by Senator John McCain. This time, Bush lacks meaningful primary competition and is an incumbent president overseeing vast increases in federal spending and an army of federal regulators at a time of unprecedented corporate corruption. In short, for those seeking federal money, appointments or regulatory relief, George W. Bush is The Man.

I. Pioneer Geography
While the overall value of Bush’s campaign bundling operation is skyrocketing, between his last and his current campaign there have been geographic and industrial shifts in the sources of his bundled money. While Texas continues to lead other states, its share of Bush’s elite bundlers has dropped 13 percent since Bush ran for president as governor of Texas. Meanwhile, the greatest growth in Bush bundlers occurred in New York and Illinois, which had just one Pioneer in 2000.¹ A center of what Connecticut-born Bush sometimes dismisses as the “Eastern elite,” New York’s Wall Street once launched George H. Walker’s fortune that feathered the Bush family nest. The Street more recently created the fortunes of the New York financiers who are President Bush’s fastest-growing source of bundled contributions (the Empire State accounts for 13 of Bush’s new financier bundlers—more than any other state). While California’s share of Bush bundlers has increased since 2000, its 10 percent share of the total is still well below the most populous state’s share of U.S. residents and wealth. Conversely, once-Confederate Southern states are disproportionately fertile sources of Bush bundlers.

Most Fertile Bush-Bundling States

State	No. of Pioneers & Rangersin '04	Share of '04 Total	Share In 2000*
TX	39	14%	27%
CA	28	10%	7%
FL	26	9%	9%
NY	23	8%	3%
OH	15	5%	3%
IL	15	5%	0%
MI	13	5%	5%
TN	13	5%	2%
DC	12	4%	2%
VA	12	4%	3%
GA	12	4%	1%
Total:	208	73%	62%

** Based on 242 Pioneers who raised
at least $100,000 in 2000 campaign.

II. Pioneer Industries
As foretold by the relative shift in elite Bush fundraisers from Texas to New York, a significantly greater share of Bush’s new Pioneers and Rangers come from the Finance industry (20 percent) than they did in 2000 (14 percent). In 2004, the Finance industry has supplanted Lawyers & Lobbyists as the leading source of elite Bush fundraisers. In another industry shift, the Energy & Natural Resources industry dropped from 11 percent of the 2000 bundling operation to 7 percent currently as Bush moved from Energy-heavy Texas to the national political arena. The spectacular corporate frauds discovered since Enron’s implosion have drained some of that primordial fundraising swamp. Starting with Ken Lay, scandals drove volunteers for the 2000 Pioneer program from the corporate suites of Enron, Dynegy, Reliant and El Paso Energy. While these beleaguered bundlers still walk the streets, they have not resurfaced in Bush’s elite money network.

The other significant industry trend is that 14 percent of Bush’s 2000 Pioneers now are receiving government paychecks (the industry of these bureaucrat bundlers is listed as “Other”), compared with 8 percent of the new 2004 bundlers.² Of the 35 2000 Pioneers who are now on government payrolls, 29 work for the federal government, including 26 whom President Bush appointed to federal posts. These Bush appointees include the secretaries of Commerce, Labor and Homeland Security,as well as 17 ambassadors. If Bush is reelected, many more 2004 Pioneersand Rangers are likely to get appointed to the federal payroll. Indeed, two of the 2004 Pioneers who already work for the U.S. government are repeat Pioneers from 2000 whom Bush appointed as ambassadors.

The Finance Industry, which knows the value of money, and Lawyers & Lobbyists, who know the value of influence, dominate Bush’s 2004 elite donors, accounting for 104 of the first 285 Pioneers and Rangers in this election cycle (36 percent).

A. Financiers
The 56 Finance Industry bundlers include people who raise vast sumsof money professionally, including some who have a huge interest in doing so for the president. After Enron Corp. self-destructed on the watch of 2000 Pioneer Ken Lay, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began probing a widening web of conflicts at investment banks that contributed to the recent spate of corporate scandals. This triggered a turf war with Bush’s less-aggressive Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has exposed scandals within the finance industry itself. Top investment bank executives that have rushed to join Bush’s elite 2004 network include: Credit Suisse First Boston’s Patrick Durkin and John Mack; UBS’ James MacGilvray and Joseph Grano;³ Bear Stearns’ James Cayne; Goldman Sachs’ Henry Paulson; Lehman Brothers’ Stephen Lessing; Merrill Lynch’s Stanley O’Neal; and Morgan Stanley’s William Strong. Of these powerful bankers, just Patrick Durkin belonged to Bush’s 2000 Pioneer network.

Recently, Spitzer and Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin unearthed conflicts at mutual funds. Some funds failed to disclose bonuses that they pay brokers to steer investors to certain funds or secretly awarded special trading perks to large investors at the direct expense of lesser customers (so-called “market-timing” and “late-trading” privileges). Firms initially implicated include Morgan Stanley (William Strong) Merrill Lynch(Stanley O’Neal) and several finance companies that produced 2000 Pioneer volunteers: Bank of America, Bank One and Alliance Capital. Galvin’s office also subpoenaed related documents from Putnam Investments, the parent company of which employed 2000 Pioneer Craig Stapleton before Bush made him Czech Ambassador. 2004 Pioneers and Rangers associated with mutual funds that have not been implicated to date include Trust Company of the West’s Marc Stern and Morgan Keegan’s Allen Morgan. If state officials continue to outpace Bush’s SEC in probing this industry, many more mutual fund executivesmay heed Bush’s Pioneer call.

B. Lawyers & Lobbyists
The next largest Bush rainmakers are Lawyers & Lobbyists, with the 2004 Bush campaign reporting that 20 corporate lawyers and 28 hired-gunlobbyists already qualify as Pioneers or Rangers. Because these lobby figures are based on the number of hired guns who represent multiple clients, this number does not include the 14 Bush Pioneers and Rangers who are staff lobbyists on the payroll of a single corporation or trade group (e.g. Ernst& Young Managing Director of Government Relations Les Brorsen is categorized as a Finance-industry Pioneer rather than a Lawyers & Lobbyists Pioneer).

While top donors downplay their interests in the policies of the candidates whom they bankroll, this is a particularly hollow argument for donors in the Lawyers & Lobbyists category. 2004 Pioneer William Kilberg of Gibson Dunn Crutcher, for example, actively lobbied the federal government to oppose President Clinton’s repetitive-stress rules, which Labor Secretary and fellow Pioneer Elaine Chao repealed in 2001. Vinson & Elkins (V&E),which produced repeat Pioneer Thomas Marinis, does not want to be held responsible for the counsel it provided to its top client. Shortly before Enron declared bankruptcy, V&E concluded that Enron’s off-balance sheet partnerships, some of which it helped design, were “creative and aggressive” but not “inappropriate.” Clients of Pioneer lobbyist Ron Kaufman and Ranger Tom Loeffler have made fortunes off the Bush administration’s dilatory approach to clamping down on ephedra diet products, the most deadly herbal remedy on the market.

C. Pioneer-Intensive Firms
The Finance and Lawyers & Lobbyists industries also are home to the only four private employers to produce three elite Bush fundraisers apiece. The best-known of these is the Cincinnati investment firm Reynolds DeWitt & Co. Name partners Mercer Reynolds and William DeWitt, who were both 2000 Pioneers, bailed out George W. Bush’s hemorrhaging Bush Oil in 1984 and invested in the Texas Rangers deal that made Bush a millionaire 15 times over. Mercer Reynolds served as Bush’s Ambassador to Switzerland before agreeing to be national finance chair of his current reelection effort. President Bush appointed the wife of 2004 Ranger DeWitt to the National Council on the Arts. Reynolds DeWitt & Co. Managing Director John Kern is another 2004 Ranger.

Investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) is the other Finance firm producing three elite Bush fundraisers, starting with 2000 Pioneer John Hennessy, who retired as bank chair in 1996 before the latest series of scandals rocked CSFB. CSFB Managing Partner Patrick Durkin, a two-time Pioneer, came to CSFB when it acquired Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette(DLJ) in 2000. CSFB’s Frank Quattrone recently stood trial for directing his staff to destroy documents related to a federal investigation into how CSFB rewarded executives for investment-banking business by issuing them shares of hot new technology stocks. CSFB paid $100 million to settle related federal charges in 2000. After being recruited from Morgan Stanley to run CSFB in 2001, CSFB CEO John Mack, a 2004 Pioneer, praised Quattrone’s ethics and promoted him before the document-destruction scandal triggered Quattrone’s suspension.

Three Pioneer lawyers and lobbyists currently work for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which also employed lobbyist Tom Loeffler when he was a 2000 Pioneer.⁴ Partner Alan Feld was a 2000 Pioneer volunteer who apparently did not raise the full $100,000. Feld sits on the board of Akin client Clear Channel Communications, the radio giant that stands to be a leading beneficiary of the recent deregulatory policies of Bush’s Federal Communications Commission. Akin Gump’s James Langdon is a repeat Pioneer who has specialized in international energy deals. Bush appointed Langdon to his secretive 2000 Energy Department transition team and to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Langdon is active in a 2001 Akin venture that markets international crisis management. Langdon registered in 2002 to lobby for ChoicePoint, a security technology company that helps governments and companies comply with the USA Patriot Act, which Bush signed into law in 2001. Former Congressman and Republican National Committee Chair Bill Paxon is another repeat Pioneer lobbyist at Akin Gump. Paxon did double duty in 2000 as a Bush campaign advisor and a lobbyist for seven clients. After he headed Bush’s Transition Advisory Team late that year, Paxon’s client list tripled in 2001. A charitable foundation trade group hired Paxon to kill 2003 legislation to force foundations—including one close to Ranger Robert Woods Johnson IV—to spend at least 5 percent of their annual assets on charity.