Indecisión de la élite republicana

POLITICO.com:

“There is not necessarily an early establishment candidate. Romney is trying to be in that position and Perry’s announcement got him a good bounce,” said former New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Every week, people will move off the sidelines.”

The emerging duel between the two Republicans presents an agonizing choice for donors who want to support the better general election candidate, but also want to be on board with the winner of the party’s 2012 primary.

With elites hesitating over both the painfully cautious, independent-voter-friendly Romney and the blustery, activist-charming Perry, their affections could still turn either way in the next two months.

Put another way: It’s shaping up as a choice between one candidate who looks electable and other who might be inevitable.

“People being more careful and looking for a candidate that has sustainability,” said Cathy Bailey, a major George W. Bush donor who served as ambassador to Latvia.

“They’re gonna bet on that candidate that’s gonna be able to take it across the finish line,” she said, referring to both the primary and the general election. “If you see a horse really pulling away, you have people fall in line behind that person.”

(...) In the first six months of the year, Republican presidential candidates raised approximately $40 million. Four years earlier, in the first half of 2007, the GOP field brought in almost three times that, with $118 million combined, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Even allowing for the fact that several months have passed since the second quarter ended – and that some donors are likely to sit the race out entirely in the middle of a national economic slump – that still means a huge amount of money remains unclaimed.

What’s more, the vast majority of federal officeholders and governors in the GOP have yet to throw in with a presidential campaign, leaving big wells of state-level influence untapped.

For Romney, courting that power base will likely require him to show he’s the steadier, more reliable opponent for President Barack Obama. Donors are as desperate to beat the president as rank-and-file GOP activists – but unlike the conservative activist in the street, they care deeply about electability.

On the other hand, many fundraisers are loath to get involved in a contested primary and lose. If Perry continues to build momentum for the next two months, he could pull even skeptical donors along with him. That money would be especially helpful to the Texan, whose slow-starting campaign puts him at a financial disadvantage to Romney from the outset.

Presidential campaign veteran Charlie Black, who had worked to line up financial support for a potential Mitch Daniels presidential run, suggested that Romney might be closer to his financial ceiling, while Perry is still mostly a cipher.

“The correct assumption is Romney will have all the money he needs and we don’t know if Perry will, because he’s starting late,” said Black.

“Romney’s been out working that fundraising crowd for years. Most people who are gonna be for Romney, pre-primary, have already signed up,” he continued. “I sense some people who have been sitting it out going to Perry, but how many of those outside Texas do that will help determine how successful he can be.”

Romney supporters are counting on that line of thinking being flawed. Their hope is that Republicans who have all but prayed for a different candidate than Romney – from Daniels to John Thune to Paul Ryan – will eventually reconcile themselves to the former Massachusetts governor as their safer general election bet.

(...) So is momentum, though, and one former senior aide to President George W. Bush gave Romney only a short window to turn back the Perry surge.

“I believe that if Perry survives September that most people will jump to Perry,” the aide said. “They’ll see him as lead dog and he’ll have shaken off the notion that he’s a complete boob.”

However the tug-of-war for political elites turns out, it’s unlikely that either Romney or Perry will be knocked out of the race purely for lack of funds. Romney has a personal fortune of up to a quarter-billion dollars, so he has the option of writing himself a check if his donors get tapped out.