WASHINGTON—Former President Bill Clinton is going on a fundraising swing reminiscent of his presidential campaigns of the 1990s. But this time he’s doing it for his wife.
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign has scheduled more than a dozen December events featuring the former president as her team prepares for an end-of-year finance deadline ahead of the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The fundraising blitz, Bill Clinton’s most aggressive stretch of the year, shows how Hillary Clinton’s campaign can multiply her money largesse with the help of her husband, one of the Democratic party’s most prolific rainmakers. Working together, the couple will hold at least five fundraising events on some single days in December.
After staying behind the scenes for much of the year, Bill Clinton has slowly begun taking a larger public role in the campaign. And it isn’t just with fundraising. He introduced pop singer Katy Perry at a concert before the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner last month and appeared with his wife at a party barbecue in Ames, Iowa, last week.
“No one knows her better than him and no one knows the process better, so it’s a natural fit,” said Ira Leesfield, a Miami attorney and longtime Clinton donor. “It’s like Derek Jeter taking the field when he was 38.”
The fundraising push comes as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s main Democratic challenger, makes campaign finance reform a central part of his message. Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street and financial industry donors will influence her agenda, Sanders has said.
Bill Clinton kicks off December with fundraisers in Seattle, Los Angeles, the Phoenix area and in Laredo, Texas, where he will join with Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas congressman who represents the state’s Rio Grande Valley.
