‘92 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE : Democratic Party Raking in Donations Like, Well, Republicans : In August, $17.3-million haul broke all records. One-day $900,000 boost came right after Republican Convention. GOP raised $9 million the same month.

The Democratic Party, which for the past two decades has been unable to even approach the fund-raising success of the Republicans, is suddenly raising record amounts of cash for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.

In August, according to a report filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission, the Democratic National Committee exceeded all records by raising $17.3 million. By comparison, the Republican National Committee reported raising about $9 million during the same month.

Even more surprising, Democratic Party officials said they received an unprecedented $900,000 in small, personal checks through the mail on a single day: Aug. 24, the Monday following the Republican National Convention in Houston.

Astounded by their newfound fund-raising success, Democratic Party officials believe it can be attributed primarily to the anticipation among Clinton supporters that their 1992 national ticket--unlike other recent Democratic nominees--has a genuine chance to win the presidency.

“There’s a kind of go-for-broke attitude among Democratic donors,” said Frank O’Brien, whose firm of Coyle, McConnell & O’Brien does direct-mail fund raising for the Democratic Party.

At the same time, Democrats say that many of these latest contributors may have been motivated by a reaction to the influence that the religious right exerted at the Republican National Convention. Some new donors have said they were giving because they were upset by the strict moral tone expressed in the GOP convention speeches of conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan and religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.

“The Democratic Party has Pat Buchanan to thank for much of its fund-raising success,” said O’Brien. “We gave people the opportunity to give, and Buchanan and Robertson gave them a reason.”

Despite the Democrats’ recent success, however, it is still unlikely they will be able to raise more money for the Clinton campaign than the Republicans can collect for President Bush’s reelection effort. Prior to August, the GOP was raising nearly two dollars for every dollar collected by the Democrats, and that has already given Bush what appears to be an unbeatable edge in fund raising.

“I have always held that Republicans will continue to raise more money than we do,” said Melissa Moss, finance chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “You never have enough money.”

Josh Goldstein, who monitors fund raising for a bipartisan think tank in Washington, the Center for Responsive Politics, said Republican fund raising continues to be very strong.

“The reality is that the Republicans are vastly out-raising the Democrats,” Goldstein said.

To some Americans, it may come as a surprise that either of the two parties is raising vast sums of money for the presidential elections, which since 1974 have been fueled by public funds generated from a $1 checkoff on individual income tax returns. This year, Bush and Clinton each have received $55 million from the U.S. Treasury for their campaigns.

But in recent years, with the consent of the Federal Election Commission, both parties have found a number of ways to circumvent a provision in the 1974 law that was supposed to curtail private funding of presidential elections.

This year, as a result, each party is permitted to spend at least $10 million in federally regulated donations of up to $20,000 per donor on behalf of the presidential candidates, as well as unlimited amounts of unregulated “soft money” contributions, which are spent primarily for get-out-the-vote activities.

During the first eight months of 1992, according to reports filed with the FEC, the RNC raised $32.4 million in federally regulated contributions and $16.7 million in soft money. The DNC, meanwhile, raised $30.5 million in federal dollars during the same eight-month period and $11.8 million in soft money.

Not all of the federally regulated money raised by the national party committees is spent exclusively on the presidential races, although most of their expenditures are designed to influence voting at the top of the ticket, either directly or indirectly.

One source of the Democrats’ recent success has been an aggressive direct-mail and telemarketing campaign that is said to be reaping average donations of $44 per person, compared with $28 per donor during 1988. The average donation rose, in part, because the DNC recently received three $10,000 checks, 23 checks of $5,000 each and 570 checks of $1,000 each in response to direct-mail solicitations. Seldom do direct-mail appeals attract large contributions.

“Donors who normally give $25 are saying, ‘Here’s $40,’ ” explained O’Brien. “Fifty-dollar donors are saying, ‘Look, here’s $100.’ ”

Of the more than $17 million raised by the Democrats in August, about $6 million was derived from direct-mail receipts, according to DNC officials.

Kathy Harmon, the DNC’s director of strategy and marketing, said that as a result of the unusually high average gift and the enthusiastic response rate, the cost of the DNC’s direct-mail and telemarketing effort has been reduced to 20% of total receipts. Normally, political direct-mail campaigns eat up about 35% of their receipts and telemarketing can run as high as 50%.

In addition, the Democrats have been wooing big donors face-to-face with the kind of success that had been reserved for the Republicans. Last week, for example, the DNC raised $1.1 million at a Beverly Hills party hosted by movie mogul Ted Field.

“People are engaged in this election and excited like they have not been excited since the candidacy of John F. Kennedy,” said Bob Burkett, Field’s political adviser and a volunteer Democratic fund-raiser.

Burkett said the Democrats have even had success in GOP strongholds such as Orange County, where Hillary Clinton managed to raise $100,000 at a party hosted in part by Republicans.

In August, Democratic officials said, the DNC collected about $6 million in big contributions of up to $20,000 each and about $5 million in unrestricted soft money contributions.

According to Burkett, the Democrats’ fund-raising program has been hampered only by the severe limitations that campaigning places on Clinton’s time. He said many more people could be persuaded to contribute if the candidate had more time to meet with them personally or host more fund-raising parties.

Most of the Democrats’ biggest contributors are labor unions, who gave early in the year. The unions strongly oppose Bush’s economic policies, including the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement.

Another big DNC contributor is Peter B. Lewis, head of a Cleveland high-risk auto insurance firm that was recently forced to refund $51.6 million to California customers as a result of Proposition 103, an initiative to roll back insurance rates. Lewis, who until recently was collecting an annual salary in excess of $2 million, has given the DNC at least $231,300 in soft money.

The Republicans, meanwhile, insist that their fund raising is not lagging behind expectations, even though some GOP insiders have expressed fears that they are being outdone by the Democrats. In its report to the FEC on Monday, the GOP reported raising about $5 million in federally regulated contributions and $4 million in soft money contributions during August.

RNC spokesman Gary Koops said the GOP’s fund-raising success this year has been consistent with receipts during previous presidential elections. Yet Koops acknowledged that the Democrats’ success during August was extraordinary.

“By any standard, that’s a heck of a lot of money,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve ever raised that kind of money in a single month.”

To bolster GOP fund raising, Robert A. Mosbacher, Bush’s chief fund-raiser in 1988, recently left his post as chairman of the Bush-Quayle campaign to devote his full time to fund raising. The move was part of a reorganization ordered by Bush’s new chief of staff, James A. Baker III.

In addition, Bush appears to be hosting many more fund-raising events than his Democratic opponent. Last Thursday, for example, about 3 1/2 hours of his schedule was devoted to “receptions” during a campaign swing through Oklahoma and Georgia.

The RNC’s top contributors so far this year are liquor distillers Joseph E. Seagram & Sons and Brown-Foreman Corp., and tobacco companies RJR Nabisco and Phillip Morris. Among other things, these firms are strongly opposed to proposals in Congress to raise excise taxes.

Top Soft Money Contributors to Republican National Committee Edgar Bronfman: CEO, Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Business: Distiller Contribution: $357,227 Objective: Opposes excise tax hike and health warning labels on alcohol; supports continued export promotion subsidies for alcohol

Louis V. Gerstner: CEO, RJR Nabisco Business: Tobacco Contribution: $287,550 Objective: Opposes excise tax hike and further restriction on cigarette advertising. Seeks to maintain tobacco price supports and open export policy

Top Soft Money Contributors to Democratic National Committee Lynn Williams: President, United Steelworkers of America Organization: Labor union Contribution: $386,000 Objective: Opposes North American Free Trade Agreement; supports health care reform

Gerald W. McEntee: President, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Organization: Labor union Contribution: $217,000 Objective: Opposes Bush Administration efforts to privatize public services Notes: “Soft” money is unregulated contributions spent mainly for voter drives. Contributions are as of July 31, calculated by the Center for Responsive Politics.