Mavericks

In the months counting down to the 2008 Democratic National Convention Steve Farber is wholly fixed on the numbers. “Imagine 50 senators, 200-plus congressional people, many leading state governors, 100 or more mayors and thousands of other interesting politicos all in one place.”

He counts himself among the latter. A Colorado-born-and-raised attorney who is publically acknowledged as one of the most powerful Democrats in the West, Farber co-chairs the DNC Host Committee. An anticipated 50,000 will attend the convention. “Then there’s the 15,000 members of the media who will show up to cover the convention,” He tallies the ratio of politicos to reporters—not far off a luxury cruise where 3:1 service ensures every move that matters and many that don’t will be well-recorded for posterity.

In his impeccably tailored Seville row suit, freshly tanned from a weekend break to Palm Springs tucked into a rigorous travel schedule commuting to Washington, D.C., Farber makes his job on the committee look seamless. Still active in the firm (Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck) he founded with Norm Brownstein and classmate Jack Hyatt in 1968, Farber is accustomed to dedicating vast amounts of time to his apparent favorite pastime of politics. The archbishop of Democratic political fundraising, Farber served as Governor Roy Romer’s campaign chairman, as finance chairman for Senator Ken Salazar’s run for attorney general and subsequently on his senate campaign, as chairman of the finance committee for Mayor Federico Peña and on Denver Mayor Wellington Webb’s campaign.

His devotion to process and history is nearly palpable. “It’s a tribute to this country when you think back to our founding fathers, the 55 people who 200 years ago convened to write the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Among those 55 were George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams—some pretty big hitters.”

“No media was invited, by the way,” Farber’s easy humor shines through.

As a kid, Farber accompanied his mother to the West Side polling place where he’d watch as she cast her vote. Her lesson in citizenship is one reason Farber insists on going personally to the polling place each election rather than vote absentee. On the wall of Farber’s office, among the photographs of him with President Bill Clinton and Senator Hilary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama, Senator Ken Salazar, Boris Yeltsin, Governor Roy Romer, Senator Joe Liberman, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Governor Bill Ritter, family portraits commemorating graduations and the like, and his diplomas and civic awards plus magazine articles featuring his achievements over the years, is a framed program and ticket for admission to the 1908 DNC convention, themed “Sunny Spot.”

Nothing is truer of a behemoth planning effort like this one than the old saying “It takes money to make money.” Fundraising, it turns out then, is the foremost job of the six-person host committee including Farber, Elbra Wedgeworth, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Governor Bill Ritter, Senator Ken Salazar and Representative Diana DeGette.

He remembers back to the years that public sentiment thwarted a grassroots effort to bring the Olympics to Colorado and breathes a sigh of relief that the tides of public sentiment have turned to welcome thoughtful growth versus flat-out rejection of anything that falls under the umbrella of change. There are just some things that self-made men like Farber understand about opportunity.

Farber is proud of his hardscrabble beginnings and the fact that his grandparents immigrated to Denver from Europe. A good kid who excelled academically, he graduated from CU Boulder and CU Law School in the sixties just ahead of the fringe, the first culture of protestors who contributed toward Boulder being identified as home to the hippie counterculture. Ready to prove to the world that they had the stuff to change it for the better, Farber and his new law partners quickly gained a reputation as Young Turks to watch.

It was only three years ago that Farber wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to effect change. A kidney transplant from his son kept him alive. Within weeks of surgery, a recovering Farber started stumping for his newly founded charity, the American Transplant Foundation. Farber’s experience did nothing if not prove that having plenty of money can’t spare a person from health
issues. Ironically, the launch party for his transplant charity reinforced Farber’s uncanny ability to solicit funds for any initiative, getting donors to open their wallets and commit generously to the effort.

By August, Farber and his fellow committee members will be busier than ever making the rounds of endless DNC events citywide.“Are you angling for a political appointment to Washington?” is the obvious question.

By Nancy Clark