Posted on 02/14/2004 3:39:06 AM PST by Liz
WASHINGTON -- Former U.S. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli remains a polarizing political figure more than a year after leaving office.
Both courted and reviled, the New Jersey Democrat, who gave up his 2002 re-election bid under an ethical cloud, continues to shape the political landscape through his involvement in campaigns nationwide.
His $50,000 donation to a group that ran anti-Howard Dean television ads triggered an angry retort this week from the former Vermont governor about the "ethically challenged" ex-senator. And his public pronouncement that he's raising tens of thousands of dollars for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign has detractors calling for the Massachusetts Democrat to distance himself from Torricelli.
Those reactions show that the ambitious Torricelli remains active and influential, thanks largely to a bevy of contacts and $2.3 million in leftover campaign money that he can sprinkle around to allies and causes.
"Whether it's his Rolodex (or) obviously the resources that can come to bear with the money he left in his Senate campaign, he's absolutely a player in the Democratic Party," said Bob McDevitt, a veteran fund-raiser who was a regional finance director for Al Gore's 2000 presidential bid.
Torricelli spent 20 years in Congress, including his last six in the Senate. At one point, he led party efforts to recruit Senate candidates and raise millions for their campaigns.
But his political star faded in 2002 after the Senate ethics committee "severely admonished" him for improperly accepting gifts from a political donor. With his approval ratings sagging below 30 percent, he abandoned a run for a second six-year term.
A $3 million war chest
When his term expired in January 2003, Torricelli said he would stay involved in politics by making donations with the nearly $3 million he had left in his campaign account.
Torricelli contributed nearly $310,000 during 2003, according to campaign finance reports. He helped candidates running for the New Jersey Legislature as well as out-of-state interests, including Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
A fiscal centrist who often teamed with Republicans on tax cuts, Torricelli also contributed $1,000 to Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian, a former GOP state Assembly speaker who lost a comeback bid last year.
Despite the donations, Torricelli's profile remained low until reports that he gave $50,000 in November to Americans for Jobs, Health Care & Progressive Values, a Florida-based organization that ran three ads against Dean in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire.
The ads helped sink the one-time Democratic front-runner, and Dean described the link between Kerry and Torricelli as "unassailable."
"The same fund-raiser, who is ethically challenged and had to step aside from the Senate race because of that, raised money from the same donors to support both Sen. Kerry and this . . . political action group," Dean told reporters.
New Jersey Republicans also pounced. State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, who chairs the state GOP, called on Kerry to return money Torricelli had raised for him and renounce his campaign's connections to the group Torricelli helped finance.
David Jones, a treasurer for Americans for Jobs, Health Care & Progressive Values, said he solicited Torricelli for the contribution. He said Torricelli had nothing to do with the content of the ads, which criticized Dean for supporting the National Rifle Association, cuts in Medicare and the North American Free Trade Agreement. The ad that angered Dean supporters most challenged his foreign-policy experience while showing an image of Osama bin Laden.
"I approached the senator in November because he and I have a long-standing relationship," Jones said. "What Howard Dean is doing now is the last gasp of a desperate, dying campaign."
Torricelli declined to comment. But one of his closest confidantes, Sen. Jon S. Corzine, D-N.J., characterized the dustup over Torricelli's donation as "a one-minute wonder" that will disappear.
He said the former senator's departure from Congress hasn't diminished his passion or acu-men.
"Bob's dedicated to Democrats taking back the House, the Sen-ate and obviously the presiden-cy," Corzine said. "He under-stands political strategy as well as anybody I know."
One can only assume at this point being "ethically challenged" is sort of like a test one must pass to work for the Demorats.
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