A How-To, For When You Want To

By Rick Horowitz

"I know what a fund-raiser is, and this was not a fund-raiser."

--Former aide to Al Gore, trying to explain away those Buddhists.

Constantly -- constantly! -- I am getting these questions. "Professor," they are asking me all the time. "Can you teach us this trick of politics? Can you teach us how to throw a not-a-fund-raiser?" This I am willing to do.

It is a relatively new thing, this not-a-fund-raiser, which accounts for my students' curiosity. Any politician can throw a fund-raiser; it is a commonplace. But only a very few can throw a not-a-fund-raiser. This, my students find exciting. Perhaps you are similarly excited. Shall we proceed?

It is doubtless known to you already that the President of the United States is exceptional in many ways. The majesty of the White House provides a most appealing venue for conducting not-a-fund-raisers of several descriptions. Mr. William Clinton has taken full advantage of these circumstances. What is perhaps less well known is that Mr. Clinton's Vice President also appears to have learned his lessons.

While Mr. Albert Gore's ability to amass large sums is not so highly developed as that of Mr. President himself, his ability to explain and justify his efforts surely rivals that of his mentor, and offers excellent guidance for the aspiring politician. Permit me now to provide examples.

* Furniture -- One factor that most plainly distinguishes the political fund-raiser from the not-a-fund-raiser is furniture. Specifically, one will always find at a political fund-raiser a table; this is where guests hand over checks for large sums of money.

By contrast, a not-a-fund-raiser has no table. The Buddhist temple famously visited by Mr. Gore last year, for instance, had no table; the Buddhist nuns who testified recently before the Congress made this point most emphatically. Without a fund-raising table, they made clear, this could not have been a fund-raiser, no matter how many tens of thousands of dollars were ultimately collected. It could, therefore, only have been a not-a-fund-raiser.

* Speeches -- At a fund-raiser, the politician is always heard making a direct appeal for contributions. At a not-a-fund-raiser, the politician talks only of loftier matters; at no time does he himself specifically mention money. If those in attendance are nonetheless motivated -- as the Buddhists listening to Mr. Gore apparently were -- to make generous contributions within hours of hearing the lofty speech, this is merely a happy coincidence, and should not give rise to negative speculation. Indeed, the happy coincidence is an essential element of the successful not-a-fund-raiser.

* Advance Warning -- For an event to be a fund-raiser, the politician in question must be told in advance by a senior staff member that the event is a fund-raiser. The possession of such knowledge by other staff members, even if conveyed in memorandum form to the politician himself, is insufficient. Unless, for instance, a senior staff member uttered the words "This is a fund-raiser" directly to Mr. Gore before he ever set foot in the temple, the event was clearly a not-a-fund-raiser. This is obvious, yes? We proceed.

* Terminology -- Of all factors, perhaps the most important in throwing a not-a-fund-raiser is terminology. In this regard, the exertions of Mr. Gore and his assistants are most imaginative. Consider, please, the succession of labels affixed at different moments to the temple visit by Mr. Gore and those who have toiled for him. You are surely familiar with the original "community outreach" description, which was later supplanted by the "finance-related event" description. Most recently, Mr. Gore's visit has been characterized as a "donor-maintenance event," intended "to reward donors or to motivate new donors."

You are perhaps now wondering how an event designed in part to "motivate new donors," an event which did in fact motivate new donors, can be anything but a fund-raiser, rather than a not-a-fund-raiser. We are products of a cynical age.

Whereas my students see only opportunities.

9/10/97