Posted on 09/30/2007 1:52:11 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
An exclusive Zogby poll for FSB shows that a plurality of small-business voters are still undecided about the presidential election. Republican Mitt Romney had the most fans.
(FSB Magazine) -- Although Scott Hauge and Grafton Willey are both entrepreneurs, they have little in common when it comes to politics. Hauge, 57, runs Cal Insurance, a regional brokerage based in San Francisco (cal-insure.com). A registered Democrat who faces a double-digit increase in his $140,000 annual premium to insure 32 employees, he argues that health-care reform should be our next President's first domestic priority. "Small-business owners just want health insurance off their backs," he says.
Willey, 58, describes himself as a Republican-leaning independent, and what he wants off his back is the federal government. "America's entrepreneurial spirit makes us unique in the world," says Willey, part owner of the Providence accounting firm Tofias PC (tofias.com) and chair of the National Small Business Association (nsba.biz), an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. "I'm concerned when government tries to overtax and overregulate the goose that lays the golden egg."
Like many of their fellow small-business owners, Hauge and Willey haven't yet made up their minds about the candidates. A plurality (28%) of the respondents in a recent FSB/Zogby International (zogby.com) survey of entrepreneurs chose "None/Not sure" as the candidate most likely to help small business, followed by Republican Mitt Romney (21%), and Democrat John Edwards (19%).
While it's not unusual for many voters to be undecided half a year before the first primaries, the current high rate of skepticism reflects a consensus that the candidates are making little effort to court Main Street voters. "The importance of small business is not on the table this time," huffs Willey.
--snip--
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
• Send FReep Mail to Unmarked Package to get [ON] or [OFF] the Mitt Romney Ping List •
Mitt’s dipping into his own funds now. Go figure.
“Mitt’s dipping into his own funds now. Go figure”
“When former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney closes the books on his latest campaign finance report today, it will reveal a slow but steady shift from a candidacy built on thousands of individual donations to one relying increasingly on his own personal fortune.
Top Romney advisers said last week that they expected his campaign to raise almost $40 million in the first nine of months this year. And though they have not released a firm figure, they expected that Romney will have supplemented those contributions with nearly $15 million of his own money.”
>>That Romney is spending some of his personal fortune, estimated to be between $190 million and $250 million, in part reflects a decline in donations to his campaign. He led all of the GOP contenders in fundraising during the first three months of the year. But he relied in large part on maximum donations from business allies in Massachusetts, where he ran the venture capital company Bain Capital Partners, as well as from fellow Mormons in Utah, where Romney managed the 2002 Winter Olympics. His donations from those two states fell sharply between April and June.<<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092901537_pf.html
Thanks for posting that. Mitt-fans must be very concerned at this downturn in Mitt’s affairs.
Hmmm...
1) he raised $7 million in this quarter. He’s been a declared candidate for nearly 4 weeks. Pretty good. Besides...I’m not through donating. =)
2) So, what if he does take matching funds? Not exactly unheard of, is it?
BTW, I wonder how Mitt’s children are taking the news that Dad is spending $15 million of their potential inheritance for a lost cause? I guess he and they can count that as part of their service to the country, too, though.
Why do you think that Mitt is spending that much of his own cash on a job that offers so little recompense? Do you think he figures to recover that expenditure somehow?
You're kidding right? Fred has been raising money all summer and not very well apparently. The first wave of contributions should be the easiest for a candidate and he only gets $7M? By comparison Romey raised $6.5M in one day back in January after his announcement.
Blah, blah. You know good and well that many potential donors withheld their donations until he declared. I did. Pitch your poop someplace else, putz.
Well unfortunately for Thompson it looks like they are still withholding their donations.
Wyoming Caucuses, Jan. 5, 2008 .. 98 days and counting
Iowa Caucuses, Jan. 14, 2008 .. 106 days and counting
.....Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign will report raising more than $8 million in the third quarter of this year, according to Thompson campaign Deputy Communications Director Karen Hanretty...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904571/posts
Pitch your poop someplace else, putz.
This is a pro-Mitt thread, Clara Lou. Guess who’s pitching their poo in the wrong place?
This is FR, sweetie. He posted to me in #6, and I posted back. MYOB if you don’t like it.
Maybe he realizes that the Republicans don't have a good presidential candidate. Rudy Giuliani has taken extreme liberal positions on several issues and has used his office to advance those extreme positions. Furthermore, he's never held an office that included any geographic diversity. John McCain has been on the wrong side of many issues and controversies. He was wrong on campaign finance reform. He was wrong with his "gang of 14" effort to put liberals on the Supreme Court. Fred Thompson has almost no executive experience. The closest he's come was the Chinagate hearings that he fumbled. He has also been a proponent of campaign finance reform, and that position makes all of his talk of being a great Constitutionalist into empty posturing.
Mitt Romney is far from the perfect candidate in my eyes, but he may see himself as the best candidate in this race. If so, maybe it's worth spending some of his own money to win the office and have a chance to do good things for the country. He's been successful at everything he's ever run, so maybe he believes that he can be successful as president.
Bill
I see Mitt Romney as similar [though politically infinitely preferable to] John Edwards in that this presidential campaign is an exercise in ego. He ran for governor so that he could run for POTUS. That he’s spending $15 million of his own money bespeaks the size of his ego.
Many will disagree with me. I don’t care. I don’t see Mitt as one who sacrifices self, any more than John Edwards does.
What the hell is wrong with spending some of your own money? I thought this was a free country.
Gee, I’m Mitt fan and not concerned. He will have outraised whoever you support. Hardly a downturn. I see the fact that Romney is intelligent enough to have been eminently successful in the business world to be a plus. As do a growing number of business owners.
What has Fred tun for example. (Besides a ruined first marriage?)
Oops, “tun” should be “run”.
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