Quest for campaign cash

The hunt is on for cash as the two presidential front runners, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney make their way around this weekend in an effort to woo contributors before the September 30^th quarterly filing deadline.  In Mackinac Island, MI, both presidential front runners made a point to bring out their best qualities for the hundreds of party leaders and donors in order to rack in some extra campaign cash. Unfortunately though, while they were too busy in Mackinac, Herman Cain took the straw poll vote in Florida. This result leaves them both eager and ready to obtain the money necessary to campaign in other states.

Although the Straw Poll in Florida named Cain victorious, Romney too gained a few supporters. Perry’s performance on Thursday evening in Orlando, Florida pushed some big named donors who were initially on his side, towards Romney.  Romney took Mackinac Island like a pro, seemingly winning over the nomination. Although the candidates are neck in neck and Romney’s donors have urged him to take a more aggressive approach towards Perry, he surprisingly didn’t mention Perry in his speech. Instead, he pointed out the flaws of the Obama administration. Even though Romney’s advisers have been urged to see Perry as a more serious threat and take a more aggressive approach, his advisers responded with: ”the way we take him seriously is to run our campaign on our terms. “If we start to wobble and race around and be responding to [Perry], we’re going to look like the flip-flopper that we were accused of successfully last time. And if Romney tries to take Perry on on his turf, he’s going to lose. He’s got to take him on on Romney’s turf.”

Perry is out raising funds in Washington and several other mid-Atlantic states while Romney is out in New York and Boston. Romney is targeting these areas in an attempt to gain new contributors, especially the traditional republicans who have remained seemingly uncommitted. Perry’s team is targeting a sum of 10-15 million, all the while Romney is expected to raise nearly the same amount but unfortunately less than the 18 million he received last quarter.

Obama, like Romney and Perry, is beginning his search for cash as his reelection campaign open their offices in the battleground states.  His campaign is said to raise about $55 million with the Democratic National Committee, more than doubling the amount of each front runner. Although Obama’s campaign is looking quite wealthy in comparison to Romney’s and Perry’s, it would be a remarkable drop from the $86 million he reported last quarter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-romney-press-for-campaign-cash-ahead-of-fourth-quarter-deadline/2011/09/23/gIQAV4tPuK_story_1.html