Presidential hopeful John McCain is scrambling to raise enough money before the Florida primary to compete with Mitt Romney — a Republican rival who can loan his campaign tens of millions of dollars from his personal fortune.
McCain scheduled at least seven fundraisers in the week leading up to Tuesday’s primary. He held an event in New York on Tuesday evening, has scheduled Florida fundraisers in Miami, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Tampa and Jacksonville, and on Monday night will hold a fundraiser with his Senate supporters on Capitol Hill.
The winner of the Florida test is expected to hold a big advantage heading in the Super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5, when 21 states will hold GOP elections, reports Washington, D.C.-based newspaper The Hill.
McCain aides say the fundraising strategy is necessary because they expect Romney to dip into his personal fortune to advertise in California, New York, New Jersey and other Super Tuesday states.
The aides believe they won’t be able to match Romney’s campaign war chest after Florida. But they also feel that because McCain is better known nationally among Republican voters than Romney, he doesn’t need to spend as much money on ads to introduce himself to voters.
But devoting much of his time to fundraisers comes with some risk, according to The Hill:
“By packing his schedule with fundraising events, McCain has risked devoting less time to stumping for votes at a critical moment … Rudy Giuliani, by contrast, has made campaigning his top priority and relegated fundraising to an afterthought.”
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