Fundraisers Tap Those Who Can't Say No

"He asked me to help," Canas said. "I thought it would be a good idea. I thought, well, I could contribute."

Laraine Agren, a marketing executive in Penn Valley, Calif., said she gave $500 to Romney because she "liked what he did during the Olympics." She had never made a contribution before and might "have done it anyway," she said, "but the president of my company asked me to."

Those who donate to please their bosses have always represented a slice of overall giving. Wilcox recalled a memorable fundraising moment when a corporate executive was holding an event for Jack Kemp during his 1988 Republican presidential campaign. The host told his guests: "Jack, make it short. These people are here for me."

In 2003, Wilcox helped conduct a survey on congressional giving and found that among donors who contributed to advance their business interests, 12 percent noted that they had been "asked by someone they didn't want to say no to."

That dynamic has at times created a legal minefield for campaigns. In January 2003, for instance, an Arkansas law firm worked with staff members from then-Sen. John Edwards's campaign to plan two fundraisers. The firm's managing partner instructed his assistant to ask four other employees to make $2,000 contributions to the North Carolina Democrat and then to reimburse them, which is illegal.

Edwards now circulates a three-page memo of guidelines to volunteer fundraisers, including a reminder in large print that the law "strictly prohibits reimbursement of contributions made by others."

Bundlers have become so ingrained in the fundraising process that some Web sites keep track of who they are. But Congress recently acted to create more transparency when the bundlers are lobbyists. Under the ethics legislation passed by both the House and Senate last week, members of Congress will have to disclose the names of lobbyists who bundle contributions of more than $15,000 for them.

But the pressure to give persists in all settings. Producers and agents flocked to events that movie mogul Steven Spielberg held earlier this year. Donna Bojarsky, a Hollywood political consultant, said those attending may already have been inclined to give. "But if the head of your studio is doing a fundraiser . . . I would think the people who work for that person would see it as a good idea to go."

When asked how he brought in money, longtime Atlanta fundraiser Kirk Dornbush joked: "You mean besides guns, knives and threats?"

Dornbush, the president of a medical research firm who is helping Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) raise cash for his presidential bid, acknowledged that he does turn to business associates -- " 'People I can rely on to help out' is how I'd put it." But he says Obama has made fundraising relatively easy.

But while Obama, in particular, has seen a flood of money come in via the Internet, most of the candidates keep pace by pushing well-connected fundraisers into service. When former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was designing his fundraising plans, for example, he looked for chief executives, top lawyers and bankers -- and even considered asking former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton to solicit contributions from pro athletes.

And whether those bundlers have dreams of an ambassadorship or an invitation to a White House dinner, or simply think that the candidate would make the best president, their fundraising targets are higher than ever.

"The raisers at this point, because the pace is so accelerated, they really have to get creative," said Tracy Sturman, who served as Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's finance director when he sought the White House as a Democrat in 2004. She is not attached to a 2008 campaign.

"They're reaching out to people who aren't traditionally givers," Sturman said. "But because the base of support is expanding so fast, people are scrambling to just find anyone who hasn't given yet."

The evidence that candidates and their supporters are working their connections can be abundantly clear on campaign finance forms. The phenomenon would explain, for instance, why 67 lawyers at the Texas location of Giuliani's law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, donated a total of more than $100,000 to his campaign. Or how Fortress Investment Group, the firm where Edwards worked, became the source of 87 contributions totaling more than $150,000 for his presidential bid -- including checks that came not only from top executives but also from analysts and executive assistants.

Several Fortress employees who contributed to Edwards in April declined to comment when contacted at their offices. Human resources director Michele Cohen said her $1,000 to Edwards was a "personal contribution that had nothing to do with Fortress" and added: "I can't say what other personal decisions my colleagues have made."

For the most part, people who are asked to donate at work say they are doing so willingly. That is what Joanna M. Baricevic said when asked about the $4,200 that she and her husband gave McCain on Feb. 28. Baricevic, 64, is an executive assistant at Lehman Brothers; her husband is retired. And these were their first political gifts. Asked how she came to donate, Baricevic said: "Through my office. Many people here are involved in his campaign."

Database editor Sarah Cohen, research editor Lucy Shackelford and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.