Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Mitt's mega-money

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The Boston Globe today puts the value of Mitt Romney, "by far the wealthiest presidential candidate," and his wife in the neighborhood of $250 million.

Writing last week in the Phoenix, David Bernstein noted how Romney is awash in campaign contributions from his financial-world friends. So what price is their loyalty?

Since becoming a very wealthy man by the mid 1990s, several observers say, Romney has cared less about making more money and more about how his loyal and grateful minions can help him politically: collecting contributions for him, and burnishing his image by providing tales of his successful leadership. (See “Rewriting Staples History.”)

Since then, political observers add, Romney has been laying the groundwork for what he has sown this year: a far-flung fundraising network, outpacing his Republican rivals by raising more than $37 million in individual contributions. That money has primarily come from wealthy people in the finance and business communities, each giving the maximum allowed: donations of $2300. His “bundlers” — supporters who raise large sums by soliciting donations from their friends and associates — include dozens of people who have, in some way, benefited from Romney’s business acumen (or largesse) and through the private-equity company he co-founded, at the behest of his former boss (and key funder) William Bain.

That support begins with dozens of current and former employees of Bain Capital, its sister management-consulting firm Bain & Company, and Bain spin-offs, who along with their spouses have contributed more than a half-million dollars to Romney’s campaign, according to a Phoenix analysis of campaign-finance reports.

Equally generous have been the banking, legal, and advisory firms that Bain Capital uses for its large venture-capital and leveraged-buyout (LBO) deals. Bain has remained loyal to a small number of elite firms for these transactions, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Kirkland & Ellis. Employees of those three companies and their spouses account for well over another half-million dollars in Romney’s coffers. Romney is hardly unique in that regard — Barack Obama has received more than a half-million from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers — but when it comes to successfully soliciting funds from Wall Street, Romney has out-raised his more-politically-powerful competition, including McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Hillary Clinton.