Linda Bond is a political player in her own right

9 Mar 2008 // Linda Bond is not your average congressional spouse.

Sure, other St. Louis-area lawmakers have high-powered partners. But Bond stands out as a politically wired, behind-the-scenes player who operated at a hub of money and politics well before she married Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., in 2002.

She is a longtime Republican fundraiser who worked for Ronald Reagan, Steve Forbes, and Bill Frist. Now, the Missouri native is leading a yet-to-be unveiled campaign to raise $100 million for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Although Bond, 50, has been involved in Washington politics for more than two decades, she has cut a low profile as she helped shape national GOP policy and politics.

She prefers to hunker down at the couple's suburban Washington home or in her tidy windowless office, which sits kitty-corner from the Capitol, than to hit the Washington social circuit with her husband.

"Personality-wise, I think we're more opposites than alike," she said. "Kit's a very outgoing, gregarious friendly guy. I'm more a homebody."

Bond and her fundraising firm, Catignani & Bond, recently drew attention from an ethics watchdog group that examined family connections to campaign spending.

The report, by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, suggested — erroneously, the Bonds say — that Linda Bond has benefited financially from her husband's campaign because Bond's re-election committee and his leadership PAC have made payments to Catignani & Bond.

But the senator's contract is with his wife's partner, Linus Catignani, for fundraising services. Bond and his wife said that Catignani is paid separately and that none of the fundraising fees go to her or the firm. The payments to the firm were reimbursements for fundraising expenses, like food.

"I would never take any income from Kit's campaign or leadership PAC," Linda Bond said in an hour-long interview at her office last week. "I want to be his wife, not his fundraiser."

Sen. Bond, in a statement when the report came out, said he went to "great lengths to ensure neither my wife or her firm would benefit from my campaign."

Naomi Seligman, a spokeswoman for the watchdog group, said "we still think there's a problem there," raising a question of whether Catignani got the Bond contract "because of his partner's relationship to Sen. Bond."

Asked if she's ever worried that clients come to her in the hopes of winning influence with him, she responded with an unequivocal no.

"I think I could smell that a mile away," she said. "I work hard for every client I have."

'SHE ISN'T AFRAID'

Bond got her start in politics as an intern to GOP Rep. Tom Coleman, whose northwest Missouri district included her hometown of Gladstone outside of Kansas City. She did a stint on Bond's 1980 gubernatorial campaign, then moved to Washington to work for the Reagan administration.

In the early 1990s, Bond, then Linda Pell, went to work for the conservative think tank Empower America, helping to shape its policy platforms and then becoming its chief fundraiser. When Steve Forbes, the group's chairman, decided to make a run for the White House, Bond went along.

"She isn't afraid of a big challenge," Forbes said, noting that as a multimillionaire, people were hardly rushing to write him checks. "But she is intensely focused ... and she did a fantastic job."

Bond helped raise $4.3 million for his 1996 bid, and about $3.2 million in 2000.

Forbes attributed her success to a mixture of charm and savvy. "She doesn't come across as somebody who is ready to bulldoze you over and go on to the next person," he said.

Bond said she likes fundraising because it's like a political puzzle.

In the case of the Forbes campaign, for example, "you see what he's about and you figure out how to package that and sell that," she said.

Since she and Catignani set up their firm in 2003, they have had a stable of high-profile clients, from one-time Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. They are helping to raise money for the 2008 Republican National Convention.

But Bond spends most of her time working on the $100 million Reagan Library campaign to mark Reagan's 100th birthday, on Feb. 6, 2011.

ROCKY START

Bond describes herself as "Ronald Reagan conservative." Sen. Bond said that when he first started to date her, "she said I was a 'liberal Republican.'"

Their relationship got off to a rocky start, but not because of political differences.

They dated for a few months in the late 1990s, then she broke it off. She said he'd been gone for a month — during Congress' August recess — and came back expecting to pick things up where he'd left off.

"Kit thought that was very normal ...(to) come back and expect everything to be the same," she said. "I thought, who needs that?"

Three years later, the senator called. She was skeptical, but agreed to go to dinner with him.

"With a lot of political people, you don't know what's real and what's not," she said. Bond convinced her he was truly head-over-heels, and less than a year later they were engaged. (It was the second marriage for both.)

Although some have speculated that Linda Bond has tugged the senator to the right, she says she's had little influence on him — except in one area.

"I've polished him up a bit," she allows.

Bond, who just turned 69, said he has lost "about 20 ugly pounds" since they married (she put him on the Atkins diet) and he's gotten a much spiffier wardrobe.

"Trent Lott (R-Miss.) used to call me 'Pigpen,'" Sen. Bond said. "After Linda took over, he said, 'You're 'Fashion boy' now.'"