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As finance chairman, Kimelman specialized in putting the arm on big contributors for McGovern's primary battles, raising some $2.5 million, including $80,000 of his own funds. He is also the organization's budget director and became known to McGovern staffers as a tight-fisted spender. "I'm a good clamper-downer," says Kimelman. "I have a lot of one-word answers: No." Among others who bridled at Kimelman's autocratic ways was Max Palevsky, a Xerox millionaire and prime McGovern contributor. Recently he pulled out of the candidate's organization, partly over differences with Kimelman.
Kimelman figures that he must raise at least $25 million for McGovern's presidential race. "I've always been fiscally conservative," he says. "Every year, no matter what my income was, I've saved a little and invested a little." Using the same rule, he is putting 25% of the campaign contributions into a trust fund that later will be used to make repayments to people who merely lend money to the campaign. Whether he can keep on feeding the trust fund if
McGovern's cash runs short remains to be seen.
Last week, fully realizing that his candidate is not exactly a hero to most bigtime political donors anyway, Kimelman was somewhat distressed over the revelations about Senator Thomas Eagleton's mental-health history. Should McGovern be able to overcome the increasingly steep odds and manage to bankroll a winning campaign, his own Henry the K will probably deserve the ambassadorship that he admittedly covets.