Posted on 09/22/2011 6:29:28 AM PDT by xzins
Mitt Romney is on the road, ... securing high-dollar donors and bundlers,
He’s made stops in important primary states like Florida and has trips planned for another early state, Nevada. The former and would-be candidate also met with donors in New York City and Washington, D.C. this week. When all is said and done, the money tour is expected to hit 30 cities including stops in Los Angeles and Detroit.
Donors that are getting ready to open their checkbooks or already have say that Romney has said he needs to raise $50 million quickly.
“With all elections, of course, early money is better than late money, so he’s trying to get people going, raising as much money as they can as quickly as they can,” said former chairman of Goldman Sachs and longtime Romney friend John Whitehead.
The meeting Thursday in New York City attracted about 100 donors to the Harvard Club. Investment banker and John McCain's 2008 finance chairman Lewis Eisenberg helped organize the breakfast, which drew other big GOP donors that backed McCain in '08, including lobbyist and former McCain fundraiser Wayne Berman and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Financier Patrick Durkin, attorney Phil Rosen, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, former treasury official in the George W. Bush administration Emil Henry, and Whitehead were also in attendance
Fundraisers at the breakfast said Johnson functioned as master of ceremonies, and donors said they knew walking in that they were committing to fundraise over $25,000 with the hopes many would raise as much as $100,000.
In an interview, Weld said Romney was self-deprecating and funny and he was pleased to see so many former McCain and Giuliani financial backers in the room.
“I thought the interesting thing was that most of the McCain and Giuliani fundraisers from last time were there, and I believe that Rudy last time raised $17 million and McCain raised $10 million in the tri-state area, and Mitt raised only five, so obviously having that expansion is going to be helpful,” Weld said.
Weld added that the meeting was less about scaring potential rivals and more about Romney knowing how much cash it takes to run an effective campaign, mentioning a similar fundraising push in January of 2007.
“I think Mitt is a very prudent businessman. He’s very data driven. He knows what he needs to do and he’s focusing on it with laser-like intensity,” said Weld. “He sounded not just like a presidential candidate. He sounded like a president.”
Attendees say Romney was “fired up,” knew all questioners by their first name, and his talk was interrupted several times by applause.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Eisenberg said his goal is to be out fundraising as much as he can to raise as much money as possible for Romney, and although $50 million may be the goal now, the final number for the entire campaign is much higher.
"I do believe that by the time we’ve reached November 2012...both presidential candidates, Romney and Obama, will have raised and spent a billion dollars,” Eisenberg said.
Earlier this month, Romney fundraiser and GOP donor Mel Sembler held a similar meeting at his house in St. Petersburg with about 40 donors. Like the New York City breakfast, Sembler’s luncheon was more about getting people ready to fundraise large amounts of money than raising money at the actual event. It was what one participant at the St. Petersburg lunch called “a fundraiser to help get fundraisers.”
John Whitehead - CEO Goldman Sachs
Harvard Club -
Lewis Eisenberg - Repub Leadership Council (Fiscally tight, socially liberal)
Wayne Berman - Original anti-Palin McCain campaign whisperer. Ogilvy Government Relations on to largest lobbyist groups in nation donating 1000's to both Dems and Pubs.
Wood Johnson - NY Jets Johnson&Johnson lineage; Johnson Investment CEO; Council on Foreign Relations
Patrick Durkin - Barclay's Capital; Credit Suisse; Council on Foreign Relations
Phil Rosen - Real Estate Lawyer called one of New York's leading power brokers
Bill Weld - exMass Governor, liberal Emil Henry - GW Bush treasury guy; Lehman, Tiger investment firms
Mel Sembler - former ambassador Italy; American Momentum Bank
Zachariah Zachariah - Flordia cardiologist, major donor Guiliani fundraisers McCain fundraisers
During the 1960's Romney opposed Vietnam and moved to France.
During the 1970's Romney embraced abortion and liberalism.
During the 1980`s Romney rejected the Reagan agenda.
During the 1990`s Romney rejected the GOP and the Contract With America.
In 1994 Romney ran as a liberal Republican against Ted Kennedy.
In 2002 Romney ran for Governor as a liberal Republican.
In 2007 Romney had an epithany and quickly morped into a conservative --- albeit a phony conservative.
Its now 2011 and Romney is at it again attempting to hoodwink conservatives into supporting him.
What conservatives need to do is kick Romney to curb were all liberals belong.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.
The GOP needs to run someone who did NOT come out of the Ivy League.
At this point, I almost don’t care who, but we, as a country, cannot withstand another four years of Ivy League-led governance, regardless of which party they claim to belong to. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between any of them.
If the RNC nominates Mitt; I’ll guess I’ll have to do a write-in. Ain’t no way I’ll vote for Mitt, even if it means another term for Obama.
With Obama, the RNC has someone to fight. If the RNC nominates Mitt; we will have an “Obama-look-alike” that both parties will fall behind and destroy America even faster than Obama could. At least in Obama, there is a party to oppose him.
The Democrats can’t lose. They pick their candidate, then they pick the Republican candidate.
Tonight’s FoxNews Q&A with candidates (I refuse to call it a debate) will totally ignore Romney’s support of abortion, gay marriage, tax increases, gun control, and big government liberalism.
Every report out of FoxNews is slanted in Romney’s favor. Their “talk babes” are all of them (since E.D. left) pro-gay and pro-abort.
And these donors connected to the Repub Ldshp Council are the same people who gave us McCain. (tight checkbook, liberal social issues, big government)
Wake up America.
The enemies are at the gate...Romney and Obama...and we are shooting our own on their behalf.
If Mitt is the nominee, I will vote for the Constitution Party candidate. (Who I hope will be ... if Mitt wins... Sarah Palin.)
Liberals are giving money to a liberal trying to sell himself as a conservative. Perry should keep going after Romney as a liberal Republican from Massachusetts. Perry should show no mercy to this liberal snake Romney.
The RNC cannot nominate anyone. We vote and we nominate. Yes the RNC would work to help one candidate more than another but at the end they cannot nominate anyone if this anyone does not get the required vote to win. So do your best and tell your family, friends, and neighbors to vote for Perry in the primaries and certainly not vote for this liberal snake Romney.
You are correct, however there is a caveat.
Not every state has the same voting rules. Juan McCain got the nomination because in the early voting; Democrats were allowed to vote for the RNC nominee. Now, turn-about is fair play - Rush Limbaugh encouraged Conservatives to vote for Hillary as the DNC nominee.
But, we got stuck with Juan McCain; because liberals voted early and often in the RNC nomination process. If that happens again - the RNC and I are parting ways.
IF our side doesn’t get it together instead of slicing and dicing Perry for someone who hasn’t declared then Mitten is the nominee. That will be a very sad day for this country.
I agree that Perry should go after Romney, but I also think any conservative on that stage should be going after Romney instead of after other conservatives.
Romney is John Kerry, his Massachusetts buddy.
Romney is Obama, his healthcare soul-mate.
After reading the article I feel funny.....earp! I think I’m gonna puke.
Right now it's not looking good for Gov. Perry. He was bound to lose some support after he jumped into the race. As long as he was outside he wasn't under constant attack. Now Gov Perry is under attack all the time.
However, I see solid conservatives endorsing Gov. Perry every week, Sen. Brownback and Rep. Issa come to mind. Also, even though Gov Perry is under constant attack he has not buckled under the pressure. The most obvious example being the call for him to repudiate his Ponzi Scheme comment. IOW, he is gaining support among conservatives and establishing himself as a straight shooter who does not fall apart under pressure.
I think Romney will win NH and the libs in the Pub party will love it. When the primaries get to SC it will change. Gov Perry will win big there and he will then pull away from the field. The wildcard will be how many Rats crossover and who they vote for.
Do you really believe that the democrats, who were much busier in much more heated primary battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton, were participating in the Republican primaries to choose McCain? I doubt it very much.
I totally agree. These savage attacks on Perry by Bachmann, Santorum, pundits on our side, are disgusting. Perry should take the gloves off, he needs to expose without mercy Romney the liberal Republican who created Romneycare that was a model for Obamacare, expose Romney the abortionist, expose Romney the pro-gay marriage, expose Romney the anti-gun, etc… They say social issues are not important in this election, but in the Republican primaries they are very important. There is a main reason why Guiliani was utterly defeated in 2008 primaries, he was a social liberal.
Democrats DO not like the Super PACs. But Democrats love their laundered UNION piggy banks. And if they can't take out GOP PACs, the next step is to take out the GOP candidates themselves.
This is how the Dems and Obama do it:
The Most Transparently Political Administration in History? Under a headline reading, "White House may add politics to contract bids," Washington Technology Daily reports, "The Obama administration is determining how to require companies competing for government contracts to list their political contributions when submitting a contract bid."
According to the report, the administration's draft executive order says, "To increase transparency and accountability to ensure an efficient and economical procurement process, every contracting department and agency shall require all entities submitting offers for federal contracts to disclose certain political contributions and expenditures that they have made within the two years prior to the submission of their offer." ...
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/03/rnc-proposes-key-changes-to-2012-presidential-primaries/
There is a reason for everything ...
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