O Pioneers!: On the frontiers of fund-raising
by Nancy Watzman and Micah L. Sifry

The fund-raising machine of George W. Bush has done for politics
what Henry Ford’s assembly line did for manufacturing.
Bush’s 2000 primary campaign took in a record $101 million, and
officials project that his 2004 campaign will raise $170 million—
more, even adjusted for inflation, than was raised by all five Republican
campaigns between 1980 and 1996 combined. Central
to Bush’s success have been his “Pioneers,” supporters who each
pledged to raise at least $100,000 in hard money for his primary
bid. This form, filled out by one such Pioneer, was obtained,
along with others, by Texans for Public Justice (TPJ) through a
lawsuit challenging the new federal campaign-finance law. TPJ
also discovered that the Pioneers were far more numerous than
was previously known. Instead of 226, as the campaign first disclosed,
there had been at least 538: enough, if each fulfilled their
pledge, to account for more than half of Bush’s war chest. The Pioneer
program is aptly named, for it has tackled the old problem
of influence-peddling with new efficiency, scope, and zeal...

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