What we know about Pete Buttigieg’s wine-cave fundraiser — and what his rivals are saying about it
"Think about who comes to that."
Wine caves?The lavish underground halls were an unexpected focus of the sixth Democratic presidential primary debate Thursday night. But maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise.South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s high-dollar fundraisers have been increasingly scrutinized by his progressive rivals, amid the 37-year-old’s ascent to the top-tier of candidates in early-voting states. And that scrutiny reached a peak Thursday night when Sen. Elizabeth Warren went out of her way to single out one recent Napa Valley fundraiser.
“The mayor just recently had a fundraiser that was held in a wine cave, full of crystals, and served $900-a-bottle wine,” Warren said during the debate. “Think about who comes to that.”
The fundraiser served as an easy target for the Massachusetts senator, who has sworn off traditional fundraisers through the general election to illustrate her independence from wealth interests.
Buttigieg contended that simply accepting the support of a wealthy person shouldn’t impugn one’s campaign. But what do we actually know about the wine-cave fundraiser?
1,500 Swarovski crystals
As first reported by the Associated Press, the private fundraiser last weekend was reportedly held in the wine caves of Hall Rutherford vineyard in Northern California. The underground rooms are used for aging barrels of wine, which are sensitive to humidity and are best kept in cool, dark places.
But the Hall Rutherford property also features subterranean rooms for tours and tasting events, which can come at a high price. According to its website, one particular room includes a chandelier adorned with 1,500 Swarovski crystals and a cherrywood table with “illuminated onyx.” A number of the vineyard’s red wine vintages sell for hundreds of dollars a bottle; the Associated Press reported last week that there was a cabernet sauvignon that went for $900.
The cost of attending the fundraiser went unreported, but the ticket price for similar Buttigieg events have regularly ran up to $2,800, the legal maximum for individual contributions to a campaign. That was the sole asking price for a sold-out Buttigieg fundraiser Monday in San Francisco.
Photos posted by Recode reporter Teddy Shleifer show Buttigieg’s fundraiser dinner in the chandelier room with dozens of guests seated at the cherrywood table.
Here are some photos of the Buttigieg fundraiser in Napa — with the famous wine cave and the chandelier with 1,500 Swarovski crystals — that @BrianSlodysko wrote about.https://t.co/0sprQ3aDsy pic.twitter.com/3waO6jO93L
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) December 16, 2019
According to the Associated Press, the fundraiser was hosted by Craig and Kathryn Hall, the winery’s billionaire owners, who have been longtime Democratic donors. The Dallas Morning News reported in 2013 that the couple donated $234,000 to Democrats during the 1996 election cycle and Kathryn Hall was later appointed U.S. ambassador to Austria by President Bill Clinton.
Again, this made the recent Buttigieg fundraiser a prime target for Warren, who says she wouldn’t hand comfy diplomatic jobs to wealthy donors and has called on other Democratic candidates to pledge the same.
“If you want to donate to me, that’s fine,” Warren said Thursday night. “But don’t come around later expecting to be named ambassador, because that’s what goes on in these high-dollar fundraisers.”
How did Buttigieg respond?
After the wine-cave fundraiser was first reported, the Indiana Democrat’s campaign emphasized that the majority of the contributions he receives are relatively small donations, averaging $32 during the last three-month reporting period. However, according to The Center for Responsive Politics, contributions of more than $200 account for 52 percent of his overall fundraising. For Warren, it’s less than 30 percent.
Still, Buttigieg pointed out during the debate that Warren hasn’t always opposed private fundraisers; before she was a presidential candidate, the Cambridge Democrat held similar sorts of big-donor events as recently as last year for her Senate re-election campaign. She then transferred more than $10 million in leftover funds from her uncompetitive re-election race to her presidential campaign.
Buttigieg suggested Warren’s outspoken denunciation of big-dollar fundraisers was hypocritical and argued that Democrats need all the help they can get to defeat President Donald Trump.
“Senator, your presidential campaign right now as we speak is funded in part by money you transferred, having raised it at those exact same big-ticket fundraisers you now denounce,” he said.
“Did it corrupt you, Senator? Of course not,” the mayor added. “So to denounce the same kind of fundraising guidelines that President Obama went by, that Speaker Pelosi goes by, that you yourself went by until not long ago, to build the Democratic Party and build a campaign ready for the fight of our lives, these purity tests shrink the stakes of the most important election.”
What have other candidates said?
For as much as Warren capitalized on the wine-cave fundraiser Thursday night, she wasn’t the first candidate to attack Buttigieg on the subject.
The campaign for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has also sworn off traditional fundraisers in favor of small-dollar donors, repeatedly disparaged Buttigieg’s wine-cave fundraiser in the week leading up to the debate to draw a contrast with their strategy.
“Unlike candidates such as Pete Buttigieg, he does not hold elite high-dollar fundraisers — and he definitely does not hold them in wine caves,” Sanders speechwriter David Sirota wrote in an email to supporters Thursday afternoon.
And while Sanders himself didn’t inject himself into the wine-cave argument Thursday night, his campaign went as far as scooping up the domain name peteswinecave.com, which redirects to a fundraising page for the Vermont senator (which provides donation options from between $2.70 and $1,000). Several of his top campaign advisers even attended the debate wearing shirts emblazoned with the URL.
Nina Turner and Jeff Weaver both rocking the PetesWineCave mercy pic.twitter.com/WId17NmyGV
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) December 20, 2019
Following the clash between Buttigieg and Warren during the actual debate, a few other candidates also piled on the mayor’s fundraiser — with Sen. Amy Klobuchar interjecting to suggest a different underground attraction: Wind Cave National Park.
“I did not come here to listen to this argument,” the Minnesota senator said. “I came here to make a case for progress. And I have never even been to a wine cave. I’ve been to the wind cave in South Dakota, which I suggest you go to.”
And shortly thereafter, businessman Andrew Yang punctuated an argument about how his campaign finance reform plan would increase female representation in government with a diss of wine-cave fundraisers.
“If we were to put 100 democracy dollars into the hands of every American voter, instead of 5 percent contributing, you’d see that rate skyrocket to 50 percent or 60 percent, and you’d have many, many more women who would run for office because they don’t have to go shake the money tree in the wine cave,” Yang said.
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