Hillary, ablaze in Washington today.Photo: Getty Images
About 40 young moneymakers with neat hair and well-fitting suits arrived at a midtown restaurant last night for the first, unpublicized meeting of the HillBlazers Committee. HillBlazers is the oddly Young Republican–sounding name — we imagine those blazers in navy, accented by repp ties and pleated khakis — the Hillary-for-president folks have given to the wealthy under-45ers who will spend the next two years fund-raising for the campaign. “Interestingly, there were more men than women,” at the meeting, a spy told us. “I would say it was a 60-40 ratio. There were clearly a lot of hedge-funders, people who work in finance. It was very crew cut.”
As the HillBlazers sipped wine and name-dropped their private schools — “Didn’t you go to Spence?” — each was handed a form on which they would pledge their commitment to raising $5,000 for the campaign by the end of the first fund-raising quarter, a mere nineteen days away on March 31. Terry McAuliffe was the headliner; his brief but inspiring speech drew a flat reaction, said our source: “I wanted to clap, but everyone just sat there.” McAuliffe, characteristically, was not dissuaded. “He did a lot of mea culpa,” said the source. “You know, ‘We screwed up Kerry, the party’s made a lot of mistakes, but Hillary will not be Swift-boated.” The next big Hillary fund-raiser is a swanky dinner at the Sheraton. HillBlazers, they were told, can get a “limited-availability” seat for only $1,000 a head. “Premium” seats are $4,600. —Emma Pearse
