Hillary Clinton's Money Man

After all, in 2000 — two years after the Host Marriott deal was inked — Korge quit the lobbying business and became national finance chairman for Al Gore's campaign. Since then, he has worked hard to refashion his image into that of a successful businessman who's simply interested in the direction of the Democratic Party.

And it has generally worked. On March 12, 2006, New York Times Magazine reporter Matt Bai wrote, "If you harbor serious thoughts of running for the presidency, the first thing you do — long before you commission any polls or make any ads, years before you charter planes to take you back and forth between Iowa and New Hampshire — is to sit down with guys like Chris Korge. A real-estate developer in Coral Gables ... Korge is one of the Democratic Party's most proficient 'bundlers.'"

Yet Korge critics remain. One of them is his first cousin and a former Miami Beach mayor, Alex Daoud. "He's a phony," Daoud hisses. "The guy is an absolute fraud. I would love to see him face-to-face in the street or in the ring."

The 65-year-old ex-pol served as a Miami Beach commissioner and mayor from 1979 to 1991. Just days before his final term ended, the feds indicted him on 41 counts of bribery, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion. Two years later, a jury found Daoud guilty on one count of bribery; he later pleaded guilty to four counts of obstruction of justice and tax evasion. He served 18 months in federal prison.

This past December, Daoud and a partner self-published a memoir, Sins of South Beach, which details how as a city commissioner he circumvented nepotism rules by maneuvering the Miami Beach City Attorney's Office into hiring Korge. "When he was unemployed and needed a job, I helped him," Daoud writes. "When I went to trial, I never gave up his name and I did everything to protect him."

Shortly after Daoud's release from prison 11 years ago, he visited Korge at his law practice, Daoud says. "I was persona non grata," he grouses. "He didn't want to know me. He kept asking me if the feds were looking at him."

The two still don't get along. "We can have a charity boxing match," Daoud says. "Maybe we can give the money to Hillary."

And she just might take it. Clinton has accepted — then returned — donations from California businessman and Pakistani immigrant Abdul Rehman Jinnah, who fled the country last March after prosecutors accused him of steering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to a political action committee associated with Clinton. Then there was the $825,000 she was forced to return that was raised by convicted felon Norman Hsu. Clinton's campaign office ignored four requests for comment about Korge.

Chaykin explains, "Chris has had a lot of success because he is an extremely persuasive fellow. In all the years I have known him, I have never seen him do anything that would adversely affect my opinion of him."