The Claim

Believe it or not Romney will not be raising 40 Million in one quarter. First lets look at who is making the claim Romney will raise 40 Million:

1. P. Hynes (Works for McCain)

Make no mistake, John McCain is no frontrunner. He is the underdog. Mayor Rudy Giuliani is enjoying a tremendous and well-earned surge is popularity because of the courageous way he guided Americans through those terrible days in September of 2001. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has stumbled, but sources tell me he will have raised upwards of a whopping $40 million by March 31st. Several other worthy candidates are making attractive appeals to voters. And some potential candidates are still thinking about getting into the mix. The race is wide open.

2. Liz A. Mair ( A McCain supporter)

Email from a top source...

..."Romney's going to show $40 million raised come March 31st."
That's quite a lot of money. The question is, can he translate all that money into real support by real live voters, as opposed to big money donors?

3. Eye on 08’s Soren Dayton (who is running around with the McCain camp in NH.)

Not good for the last week or so. A big FL donor jumps ship, perhaps to Rudy. (H/T: Kavon) My money is still on $35-$40m for Romney Q1.

4. The McCain camp itself:

"We're going to pay a price for it because we got a late start," McCain told reporters in New Hampshire. "We're not going to meet the goals we had." He later said he did not know whether Romney would outpace him, but his advisers did not downplay that possibility. They also did not rule out finishing first.

The Math

Now let’s look at the veracity of the claim:

So far, Mitt has had in the neighbor hood of 50 fundraisers in the 1Q. Subtract the 6.5 million from 40 million and you are left with 33.5 million dollars in 50 fundraisers. The math would average out to $670,000 per fundraiser. When the most that could be charged is $2300 per person you are left with an average attendance of 378 at each function each paying the full amount. Many of the fundraisers are $1000 a plate and a lot of them only had a a couple hundred people there. At a thousand a plate you would need 670 people there…every time.

At the downtown Chicago Fundraiser the lady I know who attended estimated that there were 150 people in the crowd each paying $1000 to get in. That would alone would raise the remaining events averages to $685,000 per fundraiser, leaving Mitt having to have between 400-600 people at each fundraiser. In Saint George Utah Romney raised $200,000 in a fundraiser. That now ups things to Romney having to average $700,000 per event to hit the 40 million mark. I think you see where this is going.

What Are They Thinking?

A simple look at the math and those who make these claims would show to anyone with a common sense this is pure spin from the McCain camp to set Romney up for a fall. It is beyond me how otherwise smart people like Hynes, Dayton and Mair can all believe this 40 Million hype. Do they think before they type? Or are they all just on the same McCain email list? Hmmm....

Labels: expectations, fundraising, John McCain, Patrick Hynes, rudy, Soren Dayton