WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In his first 100 days as a former president, George W. Bush raised $100 million for his presidential library, putting him well on the way to funding the estimated $300 million project.
Bush’s office in Dallas would not discuss the numbers, but Bush associates said some longtime financial boosters of the former president had raised the money and that so far, none of it had come from overseas. The library to house Bush’s official papers from his eight-year presidency is to be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Time magazine said Bush was off to a brisk fund-raising start, compared to his predecessor Bill Clinton.
The magazine said Clinton had hoped to receive pledges of $100 million within a year of the end of his presidency in 2001, but a pardons scandal delayed that benchmark for a year.
