GOP Billionaires Plan: We'll Pick the Republican Presidential Candidate
Top Republican donors are trying to work together, and that might be a really bad idea.
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A select group of rich Republican donors has a plan. The New York Times reported Monday that "dozens" of the party's leading fundraisers and donors are quietly discussing a proposal to back one candidate in an effort to marshal their support behind a sole establishment candidate in an effort to avoid pitting billionaire backers against one another in a costly primary battle.
It's a strategy that could easily backfire. The anti-government activists who make up the party base in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have a reflexive suspicion of anyone perceived as the billionaire's boy (see: Romney, Iowa, 2012). And the benefits that come with the big donors' checks may not outweigh the public relations damage.