Gov. race: Paladino hires fund-raisers who worked for Scott Brown

NewsDay.com

Friday October 1, 2010 9:22 PM By Michael Amon

Carl Paladino's campaign says they've hired the same online fund-raising consultants who helped Republican Scott Brown capture the Massachussetts Senate seat of Ted Kennedy on a wave of small donations from disaffected Tea Partiers. Meanwhile, the self-described outsider is also courting establishment Republican donors, the campaign says, and the Buffalo businessman will also spend "what it takes" of his fortune to defeat Andrew Cuomo.

A big part of that three-pronged money strategy will be Engage, a Washington, D.C. firm which started working for Paladino on Thursday and will focus on harnessing big numbers of small online donations, said Paladino campaign manager Michael Caputo.

"They're going to put buckets out to catch the rain," Caputo said. Engage's founders, Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn, did not respond to e-mails seeking confirmation and comment.

The hiring comes after Paladino met this week with Republican Governors Association leader Haley Barbour and "25 top national Republican donors," who Caputo said were enthusiastic. He didn't name them.

Caputo said the campaign wants to raise between $12 million and $15 million before Nov. 2 - a goal its finance disclosure forms Friday show it has fallen far short of so far with $274,000 in contributions in late September and $209,000 in cash on hand.

Engage's online fund-raising software, iContribute, raised more than $12 million through 157,000 individual donation to Brown's upset victory last December, according to a blog by Ruffini on the company website. The site also says Ruffini and Finn have held "senior new media posts" with George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney's failed 2008 presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee.

On its own, the Paladino campaign has organized an online "money bomb" - a mass e-mail effort to get $100,000 in donations by Tuesday. The term was coined by the presidential campaign of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who said had a money bomb that raised $6 million in 24 hours for his 2008 run.

But Paladino also want big money the old-fashioned way. Caputo said at least nine physical fund-raisers have been scheduled. Volunteers were hard at work on Friday putting 3,000 invitations into envelopes and making phone calls.

Finally, Caputo said Paladino is no longer limiting himself to spending only $10 million of his own $150 million fortune. "He will spend what it takes," Caputo said.

All of the efforts may not help Paladino keep up with Cuomo's considerable $19.9 million war chest. But Caputo said Paladino may not need as much money as Cuomo to win because they're running a campaign heavy on free media and grassroots discontent.

"Every point we gain in the polls now, we will bleed for," he said.