Priebus Woos Big RNC Donors
Politico reports:
Newly installed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is moving quickly to consolidate gains from his weekend victory by repairing relations with major donors who feuded bitterly with his predecessor, Michael Steele.
Within the next two weeks, Priebus is planning to hold a closed-door strategy session with some of the party’s most respected former finance chairmen.
Among those expected to be invited are Mel Sembler and Al Hoffman of Florida, Larry Bathgate of New Jersey, Howard Leach of San Francisco and Dwight Schar of Washington, D.C. Former Ambassador Sam Fox, who served as co-chairman of the RNC Regents, the party’s top fundraising board, is also expected to be on the guest list.
All of those men signed off on a letter to RNC members during the chairmanship race urging Steele’s ouster without endorsing any of the candidates – including Priebus – as his replacement.
Just by attending the meeting, the party wise men will be lending their gravitas to the new chairman, which would send a powerful signal to wary fundraisers who don’t know him yet, said one major fundraiser.
“I like to see a guy who goes right to work,” said Sembler, who received a call from Priebus on Sunday night and is now helping to organize the meeting.
“We are going to help him structure a way to get into the major donor field. I have a sense he will be amenable to some of our suggestions. We’ve got to immediately go to work,” Sembler added.
But Priebus is facing a dramatically changed fundraising landscape.
Big donors who bolted from the RNC because of their dissatisfaction with Steele invested their money during the 2010 political cycle in new Republican groups formed with help from former Bush adviser Karl Rove, and with the House and Senate campaign committees.
