Van Dongen has additionally earned a fame as one of many high fundraisers on Ok Road. He has bundled cash for each Republican president since
Van Dongen has additionally earned a fame as one of many high fundraisers on Ok Road. He has bundled cash for each Republican president since Reagan, in addition to fundraising for Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio’s presidential campaigns. He’s now elevating cash for President Donald Trump’s reelection marketing campaign.
Van Dongen’s fundraising efforts had been essential to serving to Republicans retake the Home in 1994, stated former Rep. Invoice Paxon (R-N.Y.), who led the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee on the time.
“There weren’t many individuals on Ok Road who gave a rat’s patoot about Republicans profitable the Home” on the time, Paxon stated. “He did.”
He additionally raised cash for John Thune, a former Republican congressman on the time, in 2004 in his profitable effort to defeat Senate Minority Chief Tom Daschle.
Van Dongen additionally earned a fame as a gourmand who wined and dined high Republicans in Washington and New York.
Former Home Speaker John Boehner, who met Van Dongen as a freshman congressman, in contrast Van Dongen’s love of tremendous eating to his personal affection for golf and crimson wine.
“Meals, meals, meals,” Boehner stated in an interview. “This man cherished to eat good meals.”
Van Dongen labored his method right into a place of affect from his perch on the Nationwide Affiliation of Wholesaler-Distributors, the comparatively small Washington commerce group he’s led since 1979.
“It was not a grade-A commerce affiliation” when Van Dongen took over, stated Wayne Valis, a White Home aide to Reagan who labored intently with Van Dongen. “He simply made it that method. He satisfied his members to go all out.”
Van Dongen labored with Jim Baker, the White Home chief of workers, and Elizabeth Dole to rally Ok Road in assist of Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. He helped pioneer the idea of assembling enterprise coalitions to deliver strain to bear on Congress.
Van Dongen’s unequivocal embrace of the Republican Social gathering was a considerably shocking…