Posted on 12/08/2014 10:54:30 AM PST by Theoria
Dozens of the Republican Party’s leading presidential donors and fund-raisers have begun privately discussing how to clear the field for a single establishment candidate to carry the party’s banner in 2016, fearing that a prolonged primary would bolster Hillary Rodham Clinton, the likely Democratic candidate.
The conversations, described in interviews with a variety of the Republican Party’s most sought-after donors, are centered on the three potential candidates who have the largest existing base of major contributors and overlapping ties to the top tier of those who are uncommitted: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney.
All three are believed to be capable of raising the roughly $80 million in candidate and “super PAC” money that many Republican strategists and donors now believe will be required to win their party’s nomination.
But the reality of all three candidates vying for support has dismayed the party’s top donors and “bundlers,” the volunteers who solicit checks from networks of friends and business associates. They fear being split into competing camps and raising hundreds of millions of dollars for a bloody primary that will injure the party’s eventual nominee — or pave the way for a second-tier candidate without enough mainstream appeal to win the general election.
“If you are philosophically a center-right donor, I think you have an interest in clearing the field,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a top Republican fund-raiser in Virginia with ties to Mr. Romney and the Bush family. “I think that’s important because there is clearly going to be a competition of philosophies for who is going to be the presidential nominee. And I firmly believe that person has to be from the center-right.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The best and maybe the only thing that conservatives can do is work to change the minds of their rino friends and family members. Just talking to those who already agree with us is the path to another failure.
Yes this sounds like its probably true. I read an article over the weekend that said the big Texas donors were holding off until Jeb makes up his mind because they really want to back him instead of Perry or Cruz.
Personally I believe Mitt is going to jump back in and all the donors will immediately pledge fealty to him. It will be very hard for Cruz, Perry and Paul to raise enough money to compete.
The only two candidates they will deem acceptable to their agenda are Jeb Bush, and if he does not fly, Mitt Romney.
Any pretense that they would tolerate any other candidates is foolish. They are strictly interested in their interests. Not the interests of the United States, and certainly not the interests of conservatives.
In short, what they are doing is as intolerable as if it was being done by a hostile foreign government. They want to designate who our next president can be.
And, it should be noted, these same people, if thwarted by the nomination of a conservative, will fully support Hillary Clinton as being closer to their agenda than any conservative.
Fixed it.
Truly sad. Well, a lot can happen in two years and hopefully we can get the point across. The people DID NOT vote in republicans to be “dem lites”
Jeb Bush should be ruled out due to:
* nepotism, of both himself and his son
* support for Common Core
* support for “amnesty”
the Republican Party’s most sought-after donors, are centered on the three potential candidates ...Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney.
Please Lord NO!!!!!!
Agreed. I’d go with Ted Cruz over Palin, though.
The GOPe will settle on one RINO candidate up front and invest solely in that guy.
Conservatives will be pulled hither and nye from quasi-conservative vanity candidate to quasi-conservative vanity candidate.
We defeat ourselves so reliably the GOPe doesn’t even have to be good at their game.
I certainly hope there are no G.O.P. Donors on FreeRepublic anymore. We are wise to you Republicrats.
There’s this little thing called “the average (Republican) voter”..
Let’s not let these people tell us what to do..!
We have had nearly 70 years to get it right so I hold no great hope that two more will make much difference.
I won’t vote for any of those UN pukes, either. I’ll write in Cruz.
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