House Of Cards

"In a land of moral imbeciles, I knew I could be king," Tonken wrote in his memoir.

While still living in the homeless shelter, Tonken began organizing charity fundraising events. Tonken figured that a lot of wealthy people wrote checks to charity only if it enabled them to rub shoulders with stars; a lot of stars showed up to rub shoulders only if paid off with cash and gifts. Paying off stars meant less money went to the charities, but Tonken says nobody seemed to care, least of all Tonken. "I realized early on that stars are for sale," he wrote. "You could buy them with a watch. And I would . . . I call it taking from the needy to feed the greedy."

Soon Tonken was passing out so much bling to lure celebrities to his events that he ran up astronomical tabs at luxury retailers. He owed $1 million at Cartier alone, he claimed. "It was like I was on crack," Tonken said. "The spending was an addiction, just like any other, and I couldn't break the habit because the alternative was far more horrifying to me: losing my relationships with the stars."

By the late 1990s, Tonken was shifting money desperately from one charity account to another, and when he couldn't cover, borrowing from friends and loan sharks, he said. "I would take receipts from one event, pass them through a bogus account, and then use the money to meet obligations from a previous event," Tonken wrote. "That was not only illegal, it was crazy." Tonken described his life as one "very shaky house of cards." So, naturally, he decided to stack the cards higher. He got into politics.

While lunching with Natalie Cole in New York City in 1998, Tonken and the singer landed an invitation to a cocktail party at the Fifth Avenue penthouse of Denise Rich, a wealthy pal of the Clintons. Rich later figured prominently in the scandal over the last-minute pardon President Bill Clinton granted to her ex-husband, felonious financier Marc Rich. Soon Tonken was invited back to Rich's for an exclusive Democratic National Committee fundraising luncheon with the Clintons. To get in, Tonken said, he wrote a check for a $50,000 donation. Tonken didn't have the cash, so he stopped the check right after lunch, he said. A Democratic fundraiser phoned a few times to collect, then gave up, Tonken said.

Apparently, being a deadbeat didn't hurt Tonken's political prospects. Before long, Tonken was helping Rich and others throw Democratic fundraising events. He was on a first-name basis with then-DNC Chairman Ed Rendell, who once penned a note saying, "Aaron . . . You're the best!"

Turned out, Tonken decided, Washington worked a lot like Hollywood: Figure out what people want, and score it for them, and they won't ask too many questions.

Standing in the dining nook of his Chicago home, David Rosen tossed a pair of presidential cufflinks in the air and grinned.

"Chum," he said, using the fishermen's term for little pieces of bait thrown in the water to attract bigger fish. "In the fundraising world we call this chum. These presidential cufflinks cost a few dollars to make, and I've seen billionaires do back flips for them."

Even the most ideologically driven donors love chum, Rosen says -- presidential pens, commemorative paperweights, 8-by-10 glossies of them grinning next to a politician, any little souvenir of their proximity to power. And Rosen, a natural salesman who projects wholesomeness and cheerful intensity, likes to see his customers satisfied.

He grew up in Chicago's answer to the "Edelweiss"-singing Von Trapp family from "The Sound of Music." Rosen's mom, a former nun who married a Jewish pediatrician, led David and his three sisters in a singing group called the Rosebuds. The Rosebuds performed gratis at nursing homes, churches, synagogues and schools -- any place Mom thought the Rosebuds might brighten someone's day. Being a Rosebud didn't always brighten Rosen's day. Kids at school teased him, and neighborhood toughs beat him up for being Jewish.

But Rosen was resilient. At 16, he took a summer job as a counselor at a Wisconsin resort. He was so upbeat, so good at encouraging families to partake of resort activities, that the owner offered him a full-time job. Rosen dropped out of high school and began supporting himself. He got his GED and stayed at the resort a year and a half.