Hillary Clinton pushes fundraising limits with $200,000 tickets for single Silicon Valley house party

Clinton's fundraising binge sits poorly with her rhetoric on income inequality

In last days of summer, the candidate is hopscotching between private parties (AP)

To voters she delivers a message of bridging the income gap and lifting the have-nots, but Hillary Clinton has been spending most of the last two weeks in homes of the haves.

Hers has been a relentless tour of the wealthiest postal codes in the land, none more so than on Wednesday when her schedule placed her in the Palo Alto spread of Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, to mingle with a few of Silicon Valley’s most monied shakers.

It was only one in a long parade of late-August fundraisers Ms Clinton has attended, but it stands out for the generosity required of those who attended. The price of admission for the 20-odd guests who obliged was a stunning $200,000. That was double the $100,000 charged for guests who mingled recently with Ms Clinton in Omaha at the home of Susan Buffett, the daughter of Warren Buffett, the veteran investment oracle.

Raising cash is an unavoidable chore for any candidate running for president. The money she as well as her running mate Tim Kaine have been scooping up in the dog days of summer will help not only her own campaign but also scores of other Democrats running for office in November, notably for seats in Congress as well as in state gubernatorial contests.

But Ms Clinton has a special talent for it, by dint of the deep network of high-rolling friends she and her husband have accumulated in the quarter century since Bill Clinton first ran himself for the presidency. She is also taking advantage of newly relaxed campaign finance laws that allow individuals to give unprecedented sums to candidates and parties.

As of Monday, she and Mr Kaine had harvested no less than $32 million for the Hillary Victory Fund, which will be distributed to her campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties. A lot of was raised in last week as Ms Clinton hopscotched from party to party on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Code in Massachusetts.

That seaside swing netted at least $3.8 million, according to the campaign’s own records. Among those receiving thank you notes will be Frank Biondi, the former Universal Studios chief, who sold 800 tickets to one cocktail party at his Martha’s Vineyard summer home a week ago, which alone brought in $2 million. The few in that crowd who had given $50,000 to attend then got to have dinner with the candidate at the nearby home of Lynne Forester de Rothschild, an investor.

From there, Ms Clinton jetted to the West Coast for more of the same. In southern California, she was the star attraction at a $50,000-a-head reception at the home of Univision chief Haim Saban and thereafter in the not unimpressive digs of Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Providing extra star power: Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx and Tobey Maguire.

If northern California offered the deepest well for Ms Clinton so far - she also attended a separate event at the home of Tim Cook, current CEO of Apple - she still has next week to look forward to, before the long Labour Day weekend spells summer’s close. She will spend it in the Hamptons on Long Island, the perennial playground of the rich and profligate of New York.

But keeping her figure through the tidal waves of fig-and-prosciutto canapés and baked salmon mains, is not the only worry for Ms Clinton in the fundraising frenzy. The political optics of it are particularly troublesome for her, not just because of how poorly the glad-handing sits with her rhetoric about income inequality. There is too much of it, she regularly declares are rallies.

Beyond that, there is the danger that her mixing with the rich and connected helps to compound the perception held by many voters - and highlighted regularly by her opponent Donald Trump - that she is one of them, or, at the very least, that she is allowing herself to be bought and will be beholden to them if she becomes president.

She may not be helping herself also by denying reporters access to any of her fundraisers, a departure from President Barack Obama who even since he first ran in 2008 invited - and still invites - a small group of journalists into each fundraising event he shows up at. Ms Clinton is thus helping to reinforce her reputation as a secretive candidate. That in turn helps feed the dynamic that shows up in poll after poll: voters deeming her untrustworthy.

But it is precisely that promise of private and exclusive proximity to Ms Clinton that persuades so many to part with so much. By analysing official campaign finance filings, the Washington Post has concluded that 65 friends of the Clintons have given as much as $300,000 each to her fundraising committees in this cycle.

They do it also because they feel confident she will be the next occupant of the Oval Office. (Assuming there is no mass revolt by voters deciding the whole money-train circus is so revolting they can’t support her.)