Hillary Clinton is working hard to win Irish-American support - and it seems to be paying off, writes Denis Stauntonin New York.
As Hillary Rodham Clinton was preparing on Thursday for the first televised debate among the Democratic presidential candidates at South Carolina State University, she called her husband in New York.
"She said 'all these years I wondered what it would be like to run for president. Now I know that it's a raw deal. I'm going to debate with a bunch of guys and you're going to Gabriel Byrne's'," Bill Clinton told a crowd of well-heeled Irish-Americans at the actor's house in Brooklyn.
Byrne, who has a long history of engagement on behalf of Irish political and cultural causes in the US, is the latest high-profile Irish-American recruit to the Clinton presidential campaign. The promise of an evening at the actor's house with the former president was enough to persuade a few dozen people to part with $4,600 (€3,400) each, netting about $250,000 (€183,500) for the inaugural event of Irish-Americans for Hillary.
One limousine after another drew up outside the elegant, brownstone house, as the smartly dressed crowd queued up meekly to hand their cheques over to representatives of the Clinton campaign. Inside, one woman was distressed because she thought she had left her diamond bracelet behind in the hired limo that brought her to the party, but otherwise the mood was buoyant, as rough-hewn, self-made Croesuses sipped wine and snaffled canapés with older New York money.
Declan Kelly, CEO of PR firm Financial Dynamics, said the new group is planning a series of fund-raisers across the US, including an event in San Francisco this evening at the home of John Hartnett, of technology company Palm.
Kelly is part of a new generation of Irish-born millionaires in the US who are backing the Clinton campaign, breaking with a recent trend that has seen most rich Irish-Americans supporting the Republican Party. Among those who worked with Kelly and Irish Voice publisher Niall O'Dowd to organise Thursday's event was John Fitzpatrick of the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group and Paul Keary, who runs Financial Dynamics in New York.
One prominent New York philanthropist who has raised millions of dollars for Irish causes told me that she had never made a political contribution until Thursday but she believed Clinton was so clearly the right choice for Irish America that she was ready to make an exception.
Although Irish-American senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden retain the affection of many in the community, and a handful of big fund-raisers are backing Barack Obama, Clinton is the overwhelming choice of Irish-American Democratic voters.
Stella O'Leary, who runs Irish- American Democrats, a political action committee that raises money for Democratic candidates who take an interest in Irish affairs, estimates that as many as 90 per cent of Irish-Americans in the party are backing Clinton.
"I think the Irish I talk to feel that, if she was president, the US would have a special relationship with Ireland. They would see her as forging new ties with Ireland - economic ties, educational ties. They would see her continuing the momentum that established with his whole involvement in the Irish peace process. So they see Ireland as playing a big role in her administration," she says.
Clinton works hard to cultivate that support and her staff includes experts on Irish affairs, who maintain close contacts with political leaders in both parts of Ireland as well as the Irish-American community. But there is no doubt that much of the enthusiasm for her campaign within the community is linked with a sense of gratitude towards her husband for his role in the Northern peace process.
"They would come out for him as much as they would for her. They're very happy that he's so involved in the campaign. That reassures them that he's going to be there for them as well as her," O'Leary says.
Presidential candidates will need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to survive in a race that has started earlier than usual and is attracting record levels of funding despite restrictions on how much individuals can give to each campaign.
O'Leary believes that Irish-American support could make a crucial difference to Clinton as she runs neck and neck with Obama in the struggle to raise money.
"We're talking about millions. If she raises $500 million or $300 million or whatever, my guess would be about probably 20 per cent of it would be Irish money. That would be my rough guess," she says.
In his speech on Thursday, Bill Clinton singled out for mention Brian O'Dwyer, a New York lawyer from one of the most prominent Democratic families in the city. He recalled how O'Dwyer came to his aid during the darkest days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
"When the Republicans were trying to run me out of town, Brian O'Dwyer brought 800 Irish people to the South Lawn of the White House. Thank you, Brian. I'll never forget that," Clinton said.
Supporters such as O'Dwyer, with their deep, extensive networks within the party, are an essential element of Hillary Clinton's Irish-American strategy and O'Leary maintains that, important as fundraising is, the support of ordinary Irish-Americans is much more crucial.
"The most important thing about the Irish vote is that she's going to get Irish men voting for her. And there's no way on God's earth that they would ever vote for a woman if it wasn't Hillary Clinton . . . And the Irish-American vote is very much what they call the Independent, middle-class vote, the vote in small towns and suburbs where people actually go out and vote. That's what she's aiming at and it's very, very heavily Irish," she says.