“Let’s have civil dialogue,” said Stephanie Miner, a former Syracuse mayor and once a top New York Democrat. SAM announced plans for her to run under its banner in the race for governor, with a longtime Republican lieutenant. The favorite is Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo, already a darling of the establishment center.
In some ways, SAM’s timing for its understated arrival on the political scene has been excellent. The Trump immigration policy separating thousands of children from families who crossed the border illegally caused top GOP strategist Steve Schmidt to dump the party. Across the aisle, in New York, 28-year-old Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just toppled congressional powerhouse Joe Crowley, the kind of primary upset that threatens finance-friendly moderates.
Grossman, who wouldn’t comment for this story, has well-heeled friends at the bank who like what he’s doing. Even Vice Chairman Tom Nides, a top bundler for Hillary Clinton, borrowed SAM’s peppy vibe: “I support Democrat candidates, period. That said, I think it’s great when people get involved in the political process, even if I disagree with them.” Grossman and his professional peers have sent more than $1.3 million to SAM, according to filings. Donations so far include $50,000 from investment-management head Dan Simkowitz and $10,000 each from Mack, director Tom Glocer, and former litigation co-head Jim Cusick.
That’s pocket change compared with the cash corporations can unleash but a remarkable sum for a political project with no track record. And contributions have popped up from outside Morgan Stanley. The biggest amount, more than $900,000, came from former tobacco executive Charles Wall.
SAM wants to be more than a party backed by bankers and lawyers, so its officials don’t like to emphasize New York roots. The group did its first big voter survey in Kansas, and says it has cash coming in from small donors across the U.S. The headquarters, with a handful of staffers, is located inside a co-working space in Denver.
“Major donors are probably going to be finance or lawyers or Hollywood.”
SAM CEO Sarah Lenti argued that the early infusion of Wall Street money doesn’t mean anything. “Major donors are probably going to be finance or lawyers or Hollywood,” said Lenti, who was a spokesperson for John McCain and a research consultant to Mitt Romney. “You have to be financed somehow.”
SAM is far from the first attempt to find a sweet spot in the middle of the U.S. political spectrum. Other groups insisting on centrism include Third Way and No Labels. Michael R. Bloomberg, the owner of this news service, has pledged to spend $80 million in the upcoming midterm elections, mostly in support of Democratic congressional candidates, according to a report in the New York Times.
Grossman is the kind of big-time bank attorney who made it into the club of Wall Street lawyers that flew to the Trianon Palace Versailles hotel outside Paris in 2016 to talk shop. He isn’t enrolled in a party, and he's donated about $28,000 outside of SAM, money that tended to go to moderate Democrats and Morgan Stanley’s Republican-leaning political action committee. He played rugby at Hamilton College, got his law degree at Fordham University, and spent a few years moonlighting as an agent for baseball star Darryl Strawberry. At Morgan Stanley, he’s lately been seen around the office wearing SAM cufflinks.
He decided to do something on the day after Trump won the White House, according to SAM’s website. Grossman started by rallying friends including Scott Muller, once general counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency and now SAM’s chairman. Deep-pocketed people were ready to give it a try. “They told me all of the things they thought it was going to cost,” said Wall, who was vice chairman of Philip Morris International Inc. until 2010. “And I said, ‘I’m in. And here’s the amount I’m in for.’”