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 ...
GOP donors no-doubt want Bush, Christie or Romney. Probably Bush, since Christie is a loser and Romney will not run again.
I want NONE of those. Jeb isn’t even a Republican.
RINOs want to avoid splitting the vote.
If one of these three becomes the GOP nominee, I’m staying home in November.
I’m not going to cast my vote for a party that doesn’t want to embrace conservative values.
I’m sure Hillary will demand a person of color as her VP to secure the Entitlement Army vote.
But otherwise NJFatboy would make a great VP for her....
If Cruz doesn’t get it because of some trickery, then we write him in.
No one will misspell his name, that’s for sure.
My “Trying to Give a Flip” failed to load. I am so over the GOP E and Lamestream yokels taking over the job of primaries. By 2016 the mood in this country will be to ugly and volitile we are likely to have violence
Freegards
LEX
I agree
If those are the answers, what the hell was the question!?!?!!!!!!!!
So you think Cruz cannot legitimately lose the primary?
Conservatives better settle on one candidate if they have any desire to win for a change. Conservative vote splitting gave us Juan and Mitt.
And GOPe tactics are aimed much more at defeating their conservative base than defeating Hillary.
I think I’ll take my intel on matters Republican from some source other than the New York Times.
That’s why I said “because of some trickery”.
Legitimately losing because of poor performance wont be the GOPe’s fault.
I love you Paulestinians.
Sounds like some big government types are afraid of elections. Why the tea-party might gain ascendancy over the rino caucus and that could lead to the rino carcass.
This is from the NYT.
We have 2 whole years to get it right.
We know all of the tricks. All of the tactics, all of the media hitmen, and all of the big money players. We have their entire playbook from the table of contents to the index.
We also have lessons from 2008, and 12. There are no excuses for the right to blow 2016. This one is all on us.
The biggest problem is/will be the egos of those suffering from presidential fever. Few if any who want to run are likely to drop out. Conservative voters will have to come up with some way to decide on a candidate and support that candidate from the outset. Then those getting few votes need to fade away.
Rand Paul is the biggest danger to drain conservative votes. Some will be fooled into thinking he is some sort of conservative and the MSM will treat him better than most candidates.
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