Follow the Money

I generally find first-quarter fundraising stories pretty uninteresting. But Romney's massive fundraising quarter raises an interesting question: What percentage of his $21 million was contributed by fellow Mormons?

This as is close as the article gets to answering said question:

Ronald C. Kaufman, a lobbyist who has been advising Romney on his fundraising effort, said the candidate built on a range of connections he has made over his lifetime. He said donors included supporters from Michigan, where Romney's father served as governor; contacts from his career as a management consultant, running the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 and serving as Massachusetts governor; as well as fellow Mormons.

Of course, these "connections" may be overlapping. Salt Lake City Olympics contacts could be Mormons, as could business contacts. I don't mean to disparage fundraising from a religious minority, mind you. Just looking for an explanation for why so many people would contribute to a campaign that doesn't look like it's going anywhere. As a point of comparison, McCain's numbers suggest how things go for a campaign in trouble.

And Romney's campaign is still "in trouble." I still don't buy Romney, who is polling single digits in most polls, as a "first-tier candidate."

Final fundraising question: Do the astronomic numbers that Romney, HRC, etc., raised in 1Q 2007 serve as a deterrent to those still on the sidelines--especially Fred Thompson? If getting in means having to raise fifty million dollars in the next six months, does that throw some cold water on his presidential enthusiasm?

The media are fond of saying that "Thompson can raise the money, quickly," but doing so means (1) setting up the staff and infrastructure to do so, something that doesn't happen the day you enter the race (the same is true of ground operations in the early primary states--you might get on tv, but tv doesn't get you an actual campaign organization), and (2) putting in the time--phone calls, fundraisers, etc. The takeaway is that raising the kind of cash that it's going to take to be competitive this time around requires that you're already raising that kind of cash. Late entries seem implausible in this environment. And that includes, speaking of environment, Gore.