Giuliani and CdA got boost from visit

Rudy Giuliani’s brief stop in Coeur d’Alene in August was worth about $100,000 to his campaign – and may have put the city on the map as far as a place for presidential candidates to raise money.

Federal campaign records show that Giuliani, the former New York mayor trying to win the Republican nomination for president, collected slightly more than that amount from North Idaho and Eastern Washington just before, during and after his Aug. 23 visit to the Lake Coeur d’Alene home of John Magnuson. Tickets for the Kidd Bay Island reception, at a residence dubbed Laissez Faire, went for $500 each.

Money raised around the time of the reception also shot Coeur d’Alene to the top of Idaho cities where presidential candidates picked up contributions in the third quarter of 2007. Hayden was fourth, according to a computerized database of presidential campaign contributions compiled by the Washington Post.

Giuliani, who also had a fundraiser in Sun Valley on Aug. 23, raised more money in Idaho than any other presidential candidate this summer, at more than $140,000. That was more than twice his nearest competitor, fellow Republican Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

Romney has still collected more money – about $310,000 – from Idaho over the course of the campaign than any other candidate. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leads all Democrats, with just under $48,000 for the campaign thus far.

Inland Northwest donors include some of the region’s major business owners and operators, including Marshall Chesrown of Black Rock Development; Ray Demotte of Sterling Mining; Gregory Gervais of Copper Basin Construction; members of the Jacklin family from Post Falls; auto dealer Tom Addis; and Jerald Jaeger, an executive of Hagadone Hospitality.

Hotel owner Duane Hagadone met Giuliani when he arrived in Coeur d’Alene at his corporate headquarters and ferried Giuliani to the reception in his boat, but Hagadone is not listed as a contributor to the campaign, according to the reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Hagadone declined comment Friday. Before Giuliani arrived on Aug. 23, Hagadone was noncommittal about his support for any candidate but said he was interested in what the former mayor had to say. He said he was more interested in the exposure Coeur d’Alene was getting, adding that Giuliani may have been the first presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan to make a stop in the Lake City.