Hsu Cast Wide Net For Clinton Donors
To raise $850,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign in just eight months, Norman Hsu tapped an eclectic group of donors that included wealthy investors in his apparel ventures, hotel shopkeepers, a 96-year-old in a Florida retirement home and an auto-body worker who mistakenly thought he would get a tax break for his political generosity.
The Clinton campaign has not yet released any information about the 260 donors whose contributions it is now refunding because they were credited to the prodigious fundraising of the former fugitive, but a detailed analysis of donors Hsu brought to Clinton shows that he tapped many Asian American donors in California and New York, including complete strangers as well as his relatives. He also raised political funds from people who had already invested large sums in his private business ventures.
Some donors among the nearly 100 identified this week said they never met Hsu and did not know that their donations had been credited to his fundraising. Others had trouble explaining why they gave the funds to Clinton or could not recall the circumstances in which they met Hsu.
"He called me and asked me if I'd give $1,000. . . . I don't know how you'd say we struck up a relationship. I just knew him," said Henry Rosenberg, a New York City lawyer. Asked if he wanted Clinton, New York's junior senator, to be the next president, Rosenberg said: "I don't know. He just asked me to do it, and I did."
Nay Oo, another Clinton donor for whom Hsu claimed credit, was listed in the candidate's fundraising reports with an address in Daly City, Calif. The home's owner, Ellen Yee, said Oo used to rent a room in the house but hadn't lived there for years. A man who returned a call to Oo's phone and identified himself as Oo said he works in an auto-body shop and does not know Hsu. He said he donated $250 to Clinton at the request of a landlord. "I thought it was going to be a tax write-off," he said.
More here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091501386_pf.html