Romney's potential bid means more wooing of big GOP donors

For big Republican donors, Mitt Romney's announcement he wants a third shot at the presidency means they are spoiled for choice when it comes to "establishment" candidates.

For the potential candidates, including Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, it will mean a scramble for donors' loyalty.

"They're all going to be after all of us,'' says Ken Langone, Home Depot founder and a major GOP fundraiser.

Romney told a group of about 30 Republican donors last week that he is considering a third run. His potential bid is "very real,'' former George W. Bush communications director Nicolle Wallace said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

Romney's move "holds a lot of people in place for a while," said Fred Malek, a veteran Republican bundler.

Bobbie Kilberg, a Republican fundraiser in Virginia who helped Romney's 2012 campaign said: "There is a finite base of donors who are also fundraisers and bundlers. The pressure on those people will be more intense for them to commit to someone."

At least one of the donors widely reported to be in the meeting with Romney, Valor Capital Group managing partner Clifford Sobel, was among the contributors to Christie's 2013 re-election campaign. Similarly, Langone supported Romney in 2012 after Christie said he would not run for president that year.

Bush has sought to build a political and fundraising operation quickly since declaring in December that he was "actively exploring" a presidential bid. In recent days, he has announced the creation of two political committees — a leadership PAC and a super PAC that can raise unlimited funds. He called both Right to Rise.

Bush held his first fundraiser last week in Greenwich, Conn., and has others planned this month in the Washington area and in his home state of Florida. He's also visited with power brokers in New York and Boston in recent days.

Bush plans to spend the next few months gauging potential support for a presidential run, spokeswoman Kristy Campbell says. "His timetable won't be impacted by Gov Romney's decision to move forward.''​

Bush's aggressive moves and Romney's declaration has put new pressure on other candidates to declare their intentions quickly. Christie could announce his finance team as early as this month, according to a person with knowledge of his plans but who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Christie political strategist Mike DuHaime says no such announcement is imminent. "Gov. Christie will make a decision on his own timetable regardless of what anyone else is doing."

Langone, who plans to support Christie if he runs, said he is not aware of a finance committee for Christie. "Everybody's saying you better jump in — forget it. There'll be plenty of time for people to carve out their positions,'' he said.

"I'm sure (Christie) is giving serious consideration to whether he will or he won't (run), and I'm sure he's giving serious consideration to what it does to his schedule by Bush and Romney saying they want to run,'' Langone said.

The New Jersey governor, who spent Sunday watching his favored Dallas Cowboys kicked out of the playoffs by the Green Bay Packers, plans a meet-and-greet with political leaders in the early primary state of South Carolina next week, CNN reports.

Christie, who spent 2014 as head of the Republican Governors Association, and Romney, the party's most recent nominee, have ties to many of the same donors. As such, a Romney candidacy could prove more problematic for him than for Bush.

Bush can draw on a broad, decades-long network of fundraisers who backed the presidential campaigns of his father and brother, but he has been out of office since 2007 and his brother since 2008. Despite Bush's deep ties to the Republican Party's political establishment, Kilberg said: "I think it's much easier for Romney to flip a switch and reactivate a political and fundraising organization than it will be initially for Jeb."

Romney would be making a third run in New Hampshire, where he won in 2012 with 39% of the primary vote. The third run failed for Pat Buchanan, points out Fergus Cullen, former New Hampshire GOP chair. "Just because you had the support before doesn't mean it always stays with you.''

Bush is a relative stranger to the state, where political activists are used to being courted extensively. "He's got the name but he's got no personal relationships in New Hampshire. He just doesn't,'' Cullen says.

Christie, on the other hand, campaigned for Republican candidates in the state and two of his former political staff worked on the Republican effort there.

"Every one one of the leading contenders will have significant resources to compete," says Malek, the GOP bundler. "The race for funders and donors, while important, will be background noise in the end."