Connolly Shows Fundraising Prowess

With Nearly $270,000, Fairfax Chairman Strengthens Position for '07 Reelection

The corned beef and potatoes spread moved down the street this year to the Shriners' temple, a space cavernous enough to handle the overflow crowd of Democrats who traditionally stop by Gerald E. Connolly's house outside Fairfax City on St. Patrick's Day.

Hours before the annual $35-a-head fundraiser, the County Board of Supervisors chairman shared filet mignon and cabernet sauvignon with 120 corporate titans and other high rollers at the swish Tower Club, the top-floor, members-only restaurant with a sweeping view of Tysons Corner. The lunch donors wrote checks for $1,000 and up.

Connolly (D) said he expects to collect a total of $130,000 from both events, boosting his campaign war chest to close to $270,000 two years before his race for reelection.

Midway through his first term, Fairfax County's top leader is raising his profile as a fundraising powerhouse, demonstrating the power of incumbency, lifting the stakes for the chairman's race in 2007 and setting records for campaign cash.

Connolly, 54, said he is preparing for a reelection campaign that he expects would cost him $1 million against a Republican.

"Democrats have to be competitive financially, and I'm not about to engage in unilateral disarmament," he said, expressing satisfaction with the "breadth and depth of support from big and little rollers."

The Gerry 2007 campaign is well in gear, with a Web site listing progress on policies he established as priorities when he took office in January 2004: affordable housing, gang prevention, cleaner water and air, road improvements and the extension of Metro through Tysons Corner to Dulles International Airport.

Connolly's predecessor, Katherine K. Hanley (D), held an annual breakfast fundraiser that brought in as much as $30,000. "It's not unusual to raise money throughout your term," Hanley said. "It's smart politics. The races are far more expensive than they used to be."

Both Democrats have made a mark as regional leaders, observers say. But in some ways Connolly has basked in the spotlight more, reviving Hanley's brief practice of giving an annual State of the County speech and taking the political risk of defining goals for his first term.

"Once you state goals and clearly articulate them, you open yourself up to failing to accomplish them," Supervisor T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee) said. "The onus is on the chairman to stand and deliver."

Some political activists and officials say Connolly has an ambition beyond reelection: a run for Congress in the 11th District. Such a scenario would depend on falling dominoes: If Virginia Sen. John W. Warner (R) decided to retire in 2008, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R) widely would be expected to run for his seat. Connolly, a former staff worker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would be the leading Democrat to run in Davis's House district, which includes most of Fairfax and corners of Prince William County.

"Gerry realizes that this is a competitive county," said Davis, who declined to speak about his plans. "Having money in the bank preserves your options. He's in the catbird seat right now."