Romney's Fundraising Profiled

The New York Times is carrying this story today about how Mitt Romney raised $20 million dollars in the first quarter. The funny thing about this particular story is not how Romney did it, but rather the tone of the piece, that Romney is somehow cheating.

Mitt Romney, the multimillionaire founder of a giant private equity firm, knew he did not need other people’s money to mount a presidential campaign. But as they began planning a campaign more than two years ago, Mr. Romney and his advisers wanted to avoid the fate of two other millionaires, Steve Forbes and Ross Perot, whose self-financed campaigns went down as quixotic indulgences.

“By Mitt or anyone else self-funding, you don’t have a lot of people making investments in you,” said Spencer Zwick, 28, the campaign’s fund-raising director and a close aide whom the candidate sometimes calls his sixth son. “To be credible, you have to show that you have raised resources from around the country.”

Instead of tapping his own money directly, Mr. Romney embarked on an effort to leverage his personal fortune into donations to his Republican primary campaign.

The story goes on to note how Romney has used his business connections (Oh My!!!) and his connections with the Church of Latter Day Saints (Heaven forbid) to raise money.

Most presidential candidates use personal, business and social connections to raise money. In fact all candidates for office do that, it is how money is raised. Romney was an investment banker with lots of wealthy connecitons. The Mormon church is relatively small and certainly tight knit, much more so than most religions. These are natural allies and there is nothing wrong with what Romney did and the fact that his fundraising team was smart and used those connections tells me that he is following a carefully orchestrated plan for a long haul campaign.

Yet the New York Times doesn't talk about Obama or Clinton's fundraising machine, which operates on very similar principals. Sure, their operations include internet fundraising and other smaller donor programs, but if the goal is to raise the money, then you go where the money is found. Hitting up Joe Sixpack for $50 bucks shows a broad base of support (theorectically), but if you want cash, you talk to Joe's Boss or the guy who owns the company Joe works for. In short you have to tap the donors with the most money.

Now the drawback to that strategy is limits. Under the law, a person may contribute only $2,300 per election. Big donors will max out quickly, whereas Joe Sixpack can be hit up multiple times for $50 and not approach the limit. That is why a small donor base is important. But Romney has time to build a small donor base, what he needed was a strong fundraising showing in teh first quarter to establish his bona fides, which he has done. Now he can start making in-roads to the small donor crowd.

Like I said, a smart fundraising strategy.