It was 18 months before Election Day when Charlie Crist drew a standing-room-only crowd to the Tampa Airport Marriott on a Tuesday afternoon.
The checks totaled $1.1 million, setting a record for a single campaign event in Florida.
It took Gov. Jeb Bush three months to collect that much in 2002 -- and he was running for a second term.
The young woman behind the Republican attorney general's astonishing debut: finance director Meredith O'Rourke, who went on to preside over the most successful fundraising campaign ever for a statewide candidate.
''I remember standing next to her when she told the general how we did, and we all just kind of looked at each other,'' said George LeMieux, chief of staff for the candidate and the incoming governor. ``I think she's America's greatest fundraiser.''
The only gubernatorial candidate who raised more in 2006: international movie star and incumbent Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
Armed with moxie and a pink Motorola RAZR cellphone, the 34-year-old O'Rourke garnered $19 million, more than twice as much as Bush raised in his last race. She also helped rake in another $37 million for the state Republican Party, fueling a massive television advertising blitz.
As executive director of Crist's Jan. 2 inauguration, she resumed hitting up lobbyists and executives to pay for the festivities. But criticism that the fundraising tainted his pledge to be the ''people's governor'' prompted Crist to cancel a $100-per-person ball and cap donations at $10,000.
O'Rourke resembles her boss -- exceedingly gracious but not very revealing. She politely declined to discuss the scaled-back inauguration.
Sipping green tea on a recent morning, she was quick to give her boss much of the credit for the campaign's success.
''It's important to be part of something that's bigger than yourself, and that's what this campaign was,'' O'Rourke said. ``People believed in Charlie Crist and his vision, and they wanted to invest.''
She found her calling at the age of 11, helping her uncle's consulting firm distribute fliers for Democratic congressional candidate Peter Kostmayer.
Her uncle paid her in Tastykakes and soda.
''She and her sister were like maniacs running up and down the street and going door to door,'' said uncle Marty O'Rourke. ``It would take someone else three hours to do what Meredith could do in an hour.
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Her uncle attributed his niece's success to the ``warmth of her Italian mother and the charm of her Irish father -- plus her work ethic.''
Both parents are Republicans. Her younger brother was Crist's field director in Palm Beach, Martin and St.
Lucie counties. Her younger sister -- the only Democrat in the family -- voted for Crist, too.
Born on Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, O'Rourke lived in Omaha, Neb.
, Dayton, Ohio, Grand Forks, N.D., and Philadelphia before her pilot father worked at the Pentagon.
O'Rourke graduated from high school in northern Virginia.
While earning her bachelor's degree at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, she interned at the Republican Party of Virginia. She was the ''clip girl,'' which in pre-Internet days meant combing through the state's newspapers, cutting out political articles and making copies.
She graduated from clips to ''opposition research'' -- campaign jargon for digging up dirt on opponents -- and then to fundraising.
She moved to South Carolina and helped the state party organize the largest fundraiser in its history.
O'Rourke was only 26 years old and new to Washington, D.
C., when she found herself under scrutiny by a Senate committee investigating campaign finance abuses.
She was working for a firm, Triad Management Services, that sought to counter labor's influence by funneling money into underground political committees tied to Republican candidates.
A Democrat-led committee questioned whether Triad helped Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas boost his 1996 campaign while avoiding spending limits and disclosure requirements.
O'Rourke was the only Triad officer deposed by the committee, which found no wrongdoing by the firm.
The Federal Elections Commission fined Brownback $19,000 and his in-laws $9,000 for exceeding fundraising limits.
''It was a challenging time in my life,'' she said. ``It helped me form how I handled myself in the political arena going forward.
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She left Triad for the Republican National Committee, where she met her mentor, Margaret Alexander Parker, who died Nov. 30. Parker was part of an elite national circle of female fundraisers that also includes Florida's Ann Herberger, a longtime ally of the Bush family.
Juggling the demands of the campaign and a 5-year-old daughter, O'Rourke put 70,000 miles on her car.
''Most nights, to balance being a mom and on the campaign, I would do a fundraiser in Orlando, Tampa, Naples, Miami, etc., and leave at 10 or so at night so I could be home [in West Palm Beach] to take her to school,'' she said.
Her husband, Florida East Coast Industries executive Husein Cumber, commutes from Washington on the weekends. Cumber was President Bush's youngest ''Ranger'' in 2004 for raising $200,000.
O'Rourke also has raised money for President Bush, as well as Sen.
Mel Martinez of Florida, outgoing Sen. George Allen of Virginia, and former National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston.
Her company, Forward Strategies, received about $370,000 from Crist and the state GOP in the 18 months before the 2006 election, records show.
Over the next two years, O'Rourke will be in demand among presidential contenders eyeing Florida's well-heeled donor network.
She's packing up her 250-square-foot office overlooking a construction site in West Palm Beach for more prestigious digs at the state party's headquarters in Tallahassee.
''As I said to her at the end of the primary, she did a tremendous job,'' said Mark Guzzetta, finance chairman for Crist's GOP rival, Tom Gallagher.
``My hat is off to her.
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