Mitt Romney Raises $18.25 Million
Mitt Romney appears to have blown away all of his fellow Republican candidates when it comes to fundraising:
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romneyraised $18.25 million over the past three months, a sum likely to put him head and shoulders above his rivals for the 2012 Republican nomination in the dash for cash.
“Voters are responding to Mitt Romney’s message thatPresident Obama’s policies have failed and that we need new leadership in Washington,” Romney national finance chairman Spencer Zwick said. “Our fundraising for the second quarter represents the strong support Mitt Romney has across the country.”
All of the money Romney raised is for the primary race; he ended June with $12.6 million in the bank. Romney raised more than half of his total for the entire quarter during a single call day in Las Vegas in May.
Romney’s total is short of the $23.5 million he raised in the first quarter of 2007 — a sum seeded by roughly $2.5 million of his own money. He did not make any personal contributions during this reporting period, although he has not ruled out doing so during the campaign. In the 2008 race, Romney donated $44.5 million of his own money to the effort.
This was expected, of course, and it remains to be seen whether fundraising support will translate into votes when it matters. Nonetheless, between the money and the polls things are looking pretty good for Mitt Romney right now.
given the options Romney is one of the least objectionable GOP candidates so I’d call this good news. As much as I’d take a personal satisfaction in the GOP tail spinning into lunacy with say Bachmann we have a two party system and we need both parties at least nominally sane in order to function as a nation. Hopefully in the near future the GOP will once again have a Buckley-esque figure repudiate the wackos (teabaggers this time).