By The Prowler on 2.28.06 @ 12:09AM
The Arizona senator follows the money.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
Two indicators of just where Republicans money folk are placing
their bets right now: Sen. John McCain spent time
last week in Florida, Miami specifically, meeting with mostly
Hispanic business groups. This round of meetings follows in the
wake of a lunch McCain had eight weeks ago with Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush.
That the President's brother publicly disclosed the lunch
meeting with McCain and close Bush adviser, now-McCain consultant
Mark McKinnon, underscores just how far McCain has
come in gaining the support of the tight-knit Bush clan. Another
sign: McCain is being given access to some of the deepest pockets
the Bush family draws on for their campaigns.
For example, Jeb Bush, who has close ties to the construction
and land development crowd in Florida, helped arrange two meetings
that McCain advisers consider critical to their man's ability to
outraise other Republicans in the state. The first was a morning
meeting with developer Sergio Pino and the second
a luncheon with the Latin Builders Association.
This most recent Florida trip comes on the heels of several
trips McCain has made to Texas, where McKinnon has been squiring
McCain around to Bush's high-end donors and fundraising organizers.
While a number of Republican donors are throwing money at Sen.
George Allen, Gov. Mitt Romney,
and lower profile potential candidates, a number of the bigger fish
are already aligning themselves with McCain.
And not just in Texas and Florida. McCain, who was given access
to the Bush campaign's full donor list, has been making inroads
with Republicans in both Iowa and South Carolina, two states McCain
very much wants to win in 2008. In 2000 McCain didn't run in Iowa's
caucuses -- and everyone remembers what happened to him in South
Carolina that year.
topics:
John McCain, Business
