megabucks for W’s library
New York Daily News - November 27, 2006 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/474889p-399492c.html
W library in record book $500M center would be priciest for a Prez
BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
WASHINGTON - He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush
and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign -
an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential
library.
Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes
to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at
Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until
he was elected governor of Texas in 1995.
Bush sources with direct knowledge of library plans told the Daily
News that SMU and Bush fund-raisers hope to get half of the half
billion from what they call “megadonations” of $10 million to $20
million a pop.
Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab
nations and captains of industry as potential “mega” donors and are
pressing for a formal site announcement - now expected early in the
new year.
“You can’t ask people in Dallas for $20 million until they can be
sure the library won’t be in Waco,” one Bush source noted.
The rest of the cash will come from donors willing to pony up $25,000
to $5 million.
“It’s a stretch,” said another source briefed on the plans. “It’s so
much bigger than anything that’s been tried before. But the more you
have, the more influence [on history] you can exert.”
The half-billion target is double what Bush raised for his 2004
reelection and dwarfs the funding of other presidential libraries.
But Bush partisans are determined to have a massive pile of endowment
cash to spread the gospel of a presidency that for now gets poor
marks from many scholars and a majority of Americans.
The legacy-polishing centerpiece is an institute, which several Bush
insiders called the Institute for Democracy. Patterned after Stanford
University’s Hoover Institution, Bush’s institute will hire
conservative scholars and “give them money to write papers and books
favorable to the President’s policies,” one Bush insider said.
Presidential libraries are run by the National Archives and Records
Administration, but building costs must come from private donations.
Bells and whistles, like an institute or an academic program like
Bush’s father’s public service school at Texas A&M, are also extras.
The News reported in March 2005 that the library will be at SMU,
where First Lady Laura Bush is an alumna and sits on the board of
trustees. But a formal announcement has been delayed by a legal
dispute over some of the land where the library complex will be built.
It remains to be seen whether Bush’s low standing in the polls and
his rejection by voters in the midterm elections will make it harder
to raise funds. That was true for former President Jimmy Carter, who
struggled to fund his library center after being defeated by Ronald
Reagan in 1980.
But planners believe hometown and Texas pride will outweigh any drag
from Bush’s diminished political fortunes. “The money will be there,”
a senior Bush adviser said. “The President is very popular in Dallas
and the library will be great for the city and SMU.”
There’s another major inducement for potential donors: Their names
aren’t required to be made public.