January 08, 2007
Romney's Call-A-Thon Begins In Boston
Boston -- Mitt Romney calls it the most "extraordinary advanced technology ever employed in a fundraising effort." More than 350 of Romney's friends and early financial supporters gathered today in a canvernous convention hall in South Boston. With tubs of cofee and box lunches to fortify them, they planned to spend their day logged into a special campaign intranet (set up on more than 400 rented Dell computers) and make as many telephone calls as they could bear.
The day-long national "call-a-thon" to benefit Romney's exploratory committee formally hopes" to raise about $1 million," said Kevin Madden, Romney's spokesman. Unofficially, the exploratory committee managed to secure more than $1 million in pledges before the event even began. So, at the end of the day, Romney will triumphally (and humbly) announce that his team managed to secure him -- oh, twice that amount, or maybe even more.
It's a huge show. The campaign rented a ballroom on the top floor of Boston's new convention center, festooned it with flags, theatrical lighting and movie projectors. Press were kept behind a velvet rope. It's rare for campaigns to let reporters cover a fundraiser, much less to heavily tout one and to invite television cameras to interview the money raisers. For the Romney campaign, it's a creative way to show off a bit. Romney has plenty of wells from which to draw: his church network (although he can't use church directories), his consulting firm buddies, his Harvard business school alum friends, the hundreds of business executives he got to know at Bain Capital, the upper echelon of American business and government he grew familiar with when he served as CEO of the Salt Lake Olympic committee. The lot he drew to Boston today paid their own way. They included governors (Bill Weld, former governor of MA, and Matt Blunt, current governor of MO), corporate executives like Meg Whitman of eBay, political advisers like Tom Rath of New Hampshire. One Romney adviser estimated that more than 40 were members of the Ranger and Pioneer donor programs set up by the Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004.
The goals of the day are manifold. First, Romney's campaign wanted to bring all of his most ardent supporters together, early, to form a bond with each other, and chat with the governor, if they so desire. Second, they want to generate some thrust for their ambitious finance plan, which has a goal of raising at least $50 million by June. Third, the campaign wants to test itself to make sure they can compete with Sen. John McCain.
"It's about the governor's ability to be a national candidate," said Rath. 'It's also a demonstration to Republicans who are just starting to look at the race that Romney is a candidate who, structurally and financially, has the resources to go the distance."
Also, Romney himself got a kick out of the idea of having corporate executives sit down for a day and make fundraising calls.
At about 9:30, Romney entered the room to the strains of "Give A Little Bit Of Your Love To Me." He told the crowd, "If each of you raise a thousand dollars, it'll be fun," he said. "If you raise a lot more than that, it'll be even more fun." The first official call of the "a-thon" was made to Lynn Romney Keenan, the candidate's older sister. She was rapturous in praise of her brother, repeatedly interrupting his friendly overture to tell him how excited she was, how "I've been thinking about your leadership and your life and what you can give back and your courage and your energy and your smarts and your love of your country and how you motivate and inspire others." To which Romney replied, with a sheepish grin, "Obviously you didn't know this call was coming."
Romney was in a jovial mood; his wife Ann seemed to recognize the massive and life-changing enterprise on which she and her husband were about to embark. "My feelings are a little raw right now," she said. "We don't know what the next day will bring." There were tears in her eyes. [MARC AMBINDER]
Posted at 10:21 AM
Comments
GO MITT GO! I have already contacted nearly 100 of my closest friends, business associates, and family to direct them to Mitt's Website, and to several other Websites like www.evangelicalsformitt.com to let them get to know who they should be supporting in 2008!
Jacosta
Chairman & Founder
NorthStar Entertainment, LLC
Jacosta | 01.08.07 02:01 PM
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I just plopped $25 down to put my money where my mouth is, and I've never donated to a politician before. Maybe I'll need to do that several times more before June.
I heard the Call-A-Thon hit $2.5 million at 3:30 PM which breaks the previous record of $2.1 million. It's cool to participate in this record breaking event.
www.mittromney.com
Nathan W. | 01.08.07 04:07 PM
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$6.5 million, not including Internet.
Scott B. | 01.08.07 10:11 PM
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