While Tim Pawlenty is out and about making his run for the White House official, Mitt Romney is on the road setting out his plan to win the Republican nomination when (and “if”) he gets in.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Romney has met with big donors in big cities across the country in recent days, including 100-donor meeting at New York City’s Harvard Club today. Romney is urging each of his backers to raise “to raise between $25,000 and $50,000” in the next 90 days. That will give Romney a nice financial foundation to launch a campaign from.
And, according to reports from the meetings, Team Romney is telling supporters most of that money will be spent in places that are not the early primary states of Iowa and South Carolina.
From the Journal:
Romney said he needed to do well in the New Hampshire and Florida primaries and Nevada’s caucuses, while emerging from those early states with enough money to convince undecided voters that he would have the financial firepower to get to the finish line.
According to the Journal, Romney considers Florida “pivotal,” because “only two candidates [are] likely to emerge from that state able to compete in the later primaries.”
“Less clear was his thinking on the nation’s first nominating contest–the Iowa caucuses–where socially conservative voters dominate,” the Journal reports, where Romney “placed a distant second” last time around.
Romney’s Iowa conundrum has occupied the minds of his team for a while now. Back in January, Romney aides told National Journal the former Massachusetts governor might skip the caucuses entirely, preferring to hedge his bets on New Hampshire, where Romney has spent considerable time and effort since losing the nomination to John McCain three years ago.
Back in 2008, Romney lost badly in Iowa, an experience that left his state chair less than thrilled about his campaign. Republican caucus winner and former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee (who is also expected to run again in 2012) was able to appeal to the state’s evangelical population and retail politics where Romney’s all business attitude could not.
This time around, things might be different. Early polling shows Romney grabbing big support in the tea party and conservative wing of the GOP. That could make him a threat in states like Iowa where conservatism means social conservatism.
