Conexión Romney-Rubio

POLITICO.com nos cuenta que Romney y Rubio han compartido y comparten asesores, staffers y recaudadores:

Freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has no plans to endorse anyone in the GOP primary, but inside his Senate office and political operations, his ties to Mitt Romney run deep.

At least six past and current Rubio Senate aides, including chief of staff Cesar Conda and his deputy, Terry Sullivan, worked for Romney’s 2008 presidential bid, establishing a direct link and a line of communication between the front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination and the front-runner in the Republican veepstakes. There’s also a trail of fundraisers, donors and consultants who have overlapping relationships with Rubio and Romney.

(...) Yet Romney is also tapping into Rubio’s network in delegate-rich Florida. Jay Demetree, Rubio’s former finance chairman, serves in a similar fundraising role for Romney in Florida, while Bertica Cabrera-Morris, Rubio’s 2010 Central Florida campaign chairwoman, is a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.

(...) Some of Romney’s top campaign bundlers have contributed to Rubio’s campaign. And Rubio’s chief fundraiser in 2010, Ann Herberger, served as national finance adviser to Romney’s Commonwealth PAC in the 2008 cycle, though she recently signed on as Romney rival Jon Huntsman’s senior finance adviser after serving in that role for Tim Pawlenty.

(...) In 2010, GOP strategists Todd Harris and Heath Thompson, partners at Something Else Strategies, were advising both Rubio’s Senate campaign and Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. Perry is now Romney’s chief rival in the presidential contest.

Harris and Thompson urged Rubio to hire two Romney veterans they were working with on the Texas race: Sullivan, who headed Romney ’08 in South Carolina, and Joe Pounder, who was part of Romney’s media team. Harris later introduced Conda to Rubio; the veteran policy wonk and campaign volunteer helped Rubio bone up on policy issues during countless debate prep sessions, a similar role he played for the Romney campaign in 2008.

In turn, Conda helped bring on Sally Canfield, Romney’s ’08 policy director, who also was a domestic policy adviser for Bush during his 2000 campaign.

(...) When it comes to campaign cash, some of Romney’s biggest donors this cycle have contributed to Rubio, though the senator’s newly created PAC has yet to report any contributions and Senate candidates are not required to release names of their bundlers.

Washington lobbyist Wayne Berman, chairman of Ogilvy Government Relations, has bundled $101,600 for Romney and has given $1,500 to Rubio, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Ogilvy’s CEO, Drew Maloney, bundled $56,750 for Romney and contributed $2,400 to Rubio. Other Ogilvy employees have given an additional $4,500 to Rubio.