Romney iniciará fase exploratoria en abril

El Gobernador Romney aseguró ayer a sus donantes neoyorkinos que anunciará la creación de un comité exploratorio a comienzos de abril, y les pidió que le ayuden a alcanzar los 50 millones de dólares en recaudación antes de julio. El plan es recaudar en los primeros meses casi tanto como todo lo recaudado durante toda la sesión de primarias de 2008.

(...) About 100 fund-raisers gathered at Manhattan’s venerated Harvard Club this morning to hear former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lay out his ambition: Raise $50 million fast.

One Romney fundraiser said the $50 million figure was what the governor wanted to show by early summer, at the time of the first financial filing deadline of what is likely to be his official presidential campaign.

(...) “Our fundraising will be a knockout blow to anyone who is squeamish,” said one Romney fundraiser, speaking of potential Republican challengers still flirting with a race by early summer. Mr. Romney’s money machine raised a little more than $60 million in the primary campaign of 2008, according to finance records.

Mr. Romney told the crowd this morning that he is likely to announce his presidential exploratory committee in early April, an announcement that would kick fund-raising into high gear. A 15-city fundraising tour that began Tuesday in Washington is now expected to reach at least 30 cities.

As he did at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington Tuesday, the former governor told bundlers—fundraisers willing and able to “bundle” hundreds or thousands of small donations into large packages—that the primary season will be brutal. His strategy is to win two or three of the first states, with polling numbers already looking good in New Hampshire, where he has a lake house, and Nevada, where the Mormon vote is strong. Mr. Romney has been active in the Mormon church.

If he secured the nomination, he said he would press Mr. Obama with an economics-heavy message designed to contrast the president’s economic record with Mr. Romney’s executive experience at the private equity firm Bain Capital, at the Salt Lake City Olympics Committee and the governor’s mansion in Boston.

(...) Mr. Romney said the new Republican primary system, in which delegates are awarded proportionately to primary showings rather than in the traditional winner-take-all fashion, would favor the well-organized, well-financed campaigns like his own. (...)