High-stakes fundraiser dons diplomat's hat

WINSTON-SALEM -- Jim Culbertson is spending these days packing for his new job as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands -- a diplomatic plum he never thought he would take.

Culbertson has been President Bush's go-to guy in North Carolina since 1999 -- helping raise $10 million for Bush during his two runs for the White House.

Other North Carolina fundraisers for Bush have been rewarded with ambassadorships -- Greenboro's Bonnie McElveen-Hunter to Finland, Greensboro's Aldona Wos to Estonia, Raleigh's Jim Cain to Denmark, High Point's Phil Phillips to Barbados and his brother Dave Phillips, also of High Point, to Estonia.

But whenever the White House asked Culbertson -- who headed the Tar Heel fundraising network -- he said he was not interested in being an ambassador. Instead, he would recommend his friends.

"I told them from the first campaign, I didn't want anything," Culbertson said. "That is not the reason I got into it. I said I'm not looking for a job."

But this time, it was different. His grown daughter, Blair, told him to take it. She said, "You don't turn down the president of the United States when he asks you to serve the country."

Culbertson was sworn in as ambassador Thursday in a ceremony in Winston-Salem, and he plans to take up residence in The Hague by the end of the month.

Culbertson, 70, is one of the most influential Tar Heel Republicans that most people have never heard of.

In the world of big-time politics, few people are more important than money raisers. Culbertson is in an elite group of a few dozen businessmen across the country who have been mainly responsible for financing Bush's presidential efforts.

During the 2004 election, North Carolina had the highest per capita giving for Bush of any state in the country, Culbertson said.

Culbertson is an unpaid volunteer. But he has approached fundraising for Bush like a business, which is hardly surprising, given his background.

Business and politics

A native of Goldsboro and a graduate of The Citadel, Culbertson spent most of his career as a businessman. He was a salesman for a software company until he started his own 30-employee firm, which sold computer programs for car dealers and banks.

Selling his company in 2000 freed him to get involved in GOP politics. A longtime admirer of former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, he was fascinated with politics. As a young man, he was active in the Young Republicans organization, managed the successful 1968 election campaign of Congressman Vinegar Bend Mizell and threw himself into the 1972 election of Jim Holshouser, who was North Carolina's first 20th-century Republican governor.

But business and family obligations caused him to put politics on the back burner.

After retiring, Culbertson began looking for a political horse to back, and when Texas Gov. George W. Bush won re-election in a landslide in 1998, he found his man.

He used his contacts in the GOP to get the attention of Bush campaign leaders. The folks in Bush headquarters sat up and took notice after Culbertson raised more than $100,000 for Bush at an event in Winston-Salem in March 1999.

Culbertson was one of four state co-leaders for Bush in 2000 and the state chairman in 2004. He was also finance chairman for Sen. Elizabeth Dole's campaign in 2002, which raised $17 million, the most of any Senate candidate in the country that year.

"He has a very gentlemanly approach to picking your pockets," said Louis DeJoy, a Greensboro businessman who has worked closely with Culbertson on behalf of several GOP candidates. "The first thing he said when we met is: 'I'm looking for a person who can give $100,000 and can raise $100,000.' "