Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to return thousands of dollars from a top fund raiser wanted as a fugitive in California illustrates the perils of the pell-mell rush for political money — your friends can be your worst enemies.

Just ask Clinton and her rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards.

All three have experience putting out brushfires caused by former rainmakers.

Earlier this year, Clinton divested her political action committee, HillPac, of tainted contributions received from a Pakistani immigrant accused of plotting illegal donations. Obama donated to charity money he received in past campaigns from a Chicago developer caught in an Illinois corruption scandal. And just last week, the lawyer who represented assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian was indicted on charges of conspiring to make more than $125,000 in illegal contributions to Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign.

Money is the life blood of a political organization and campaigns have come to rely on an ever expanding roster of men and women with far-flung contacts to compete for precious cash.

"We have a system where we try to make everyone a volunteer fundraiser by setting targets and thresholds that can give an individual status as they are met," said Anthony Corrado, an expert on political money at Colby College in Maine. Inevitably, Corrado said, some fundraisers may turn out to be "politically problematic."

For Clinton, this week's revelations that one of her top fundraisers, Norman Hsu, had skipped his sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge distracted her campaign just as it prepared to ramp up for the intense post-Labor Day stretch.

The campaign announced Wednesday that it would return $23,000 in contributions that Hsu made to her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to HillPac.

"It's fair to say we were all very surprised by this," Clinton said Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Hsu also appeared to be raising unusually large contributions from at least one working class family. Hsu's lawyer said Hsu had done nothing improper and Clinton's campaign said there were no plans to shed further donations.

"We will continue to analyze all contributions and take action if that's warranted," Clinton said. "When you have as many contributors as I'm fortunate enough to have, we do the very best job we can based on the information available to us to make appropriate vetting decisions."

Hsu, who has an apparel business in New York and was a trustee in the city's New School, was a benefactor for many other Democratic candidates and office holders. Several also began to shed their ties to him, giving away his past donations to charity or returning them.

On Thursday, Obama's campaign said he would give to charity the $2,000 Hsu contributed to his 2004 Senate campaign and the $5,000 Hsu gave to his political action committee, Hopefund. Hsu's $43,700 in donations to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $2,500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also will go to charity, both groups announced Thursday.

Obama campaign lawyers also are sending a letter to a San Francisco mail carrier and his family who gave maximum donations to several of the same candidates supported by Hsu. The Wall Street Journal this week said the family of William Paw lives in a modest home that Hsu once listed as belonging to him. The Obama letter will ask the Paws to affirm that their past contributions to Obama came from their own finances.

Hsu was a member of the board of the Eugene Lang College of the New School in New York and endowed a merit scholarship at the college. Last year, Clinton secured a $950,000 federal appropriation for the Institute for Urban Education at the Eugene Lang College to help New York high school students.

Clinton foes, particularly Republicans, are using the Hsu episode as a reminder of the campaign finance imbroglios that bedeviled her husband, former President Clinton. Among them was the conviction of Chinese businessman John Huang on charges he laundered money that eventually made its way to the Clinton-Gore 1996 presidential campaign.

Asked whether there were similarities between Hsu and the 1996 scandal, Clinton said: "I don't think it's analogous at all."

The increasing role of fundraisers coincides with pressure on campaigns to make their identities public and to reward the most successful ones with titles and special access. Most campaigns list their fundraisers on their Web sites, though they don't identify the amounts they raise.

George Bush distinguished his big-dollar fundraisers by naming them Pioneers or Rangers. Hsu was one of Clinton's many HillRaisers. Republican presidential candidate John McCain has divided his money bundlers into "McCain 100s" for those who raise $100,000 and "McCain 200s" for those who raise $200,000. Republican Rudy Giuliani's fundraisers who collect $50,000 are "All-American Sluggers"; those who amass $1 million are "All-American Team Captains."

"Because of the pressure to raise money in this campaign, what we see in the presidential race is a much more intensive financial operation where there is a real focus on meeting targets, achieving fundraising goals and reaching certain levels over time," Corrado said. "So there is more concern on whether an individual can perform and meet financial goals rather than concerns about looking deeply into how those goals are being met."

Campaigns say it is difficult to check the background of every fundraiser, let alone every donor. Federal law requires campaigns to deposit checks within 10 days of their receipt, leaving little time to set money aside and determine its origin.

"You get a lot of contributions from a lot of folks and you certainly can't vouch for every single contributor," Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who appeared with Clinton, noted that Hsu was a wanted man in California.

Is "Senator Clinton's campaign or any campaign supposed to be doing better than the authorities in California ... who had an open warrant for this guy and they didn't do anything? Come on guys, let's get real," Spitzer said.

Hsu contributed nearly $50,000 to Spitzer's 2006 governor's race and gave $10,000 to Spitzer this year. A spokeswoman said Spitzer planned to contribute the money to charity.

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