President Bush has rewarded 146 elite 2000 and 2004 donors (23 percent) by appointing them or their spouses to his 2000 transition team or to one or more federal posts. Of these 146 big-donor appointees, 99 (70 percent) were 2000 Pioneers who have had more time than the newcomers to score Bush appointments. Nonetheless there are 47 appointees who first became elite donors in Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign.

• Bush appointed two elite donors as cabinet secretaries: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson took the Pioneer pledge in 2000 but were not recognized by the campaign for raising the full $100,000.

 
• Bush appointed 24 elite donors as ambassadors. All but two of them were Pioneers in the 2000 campaign.

 
• President-Elect Bush appointed 47 elite donors to the transition teams that he established in late 2000. These transition teams helped shape Bush’s cabinet policies and personnel as he prepared to replace the Clinton administration in January 2001. Thirty-five of these transition-team members were Pioneers in the 2000 election. Elite Bush donors showed the greatest interest in big-business transition teams, including those for the departments of Commerce (12 elite donors), Energy (9) and Treasury (8).