As Perry arrives on Friday in Washington for a private meeting with K Street insiders, the question is whether he can convince the smart money that his campaign is worth an investment. After three torrid weeks in August when he raised more than twice as much as his nearest fundraising rival, Perry has now fallen back into a much more competitive fundraising race with Mitt Romney. That is not good news for a candidate who, because of his late entry into the race, has a lot of catching up to do. Romney has raised $32 million since the beginning of this campaign cycle…
Perry’s September dropoff was so sudden and steep it suggests other factors were at work. To the Texas governor, putting his campaign on the right track is essential to attracting the high-dollar donors, upon which he most heavily relies, to fund his campaign. Of the $17 million he raised in his first full quarter as a candidate, $16.3 million, or 96 percent, came in chunks greater than $200—the level at which the FEC requires campaigns to list the names and occupations of donors.
By contrast, Romney received about 86 percent, or $12.1 million of the $14.1 million he raised in the last quarter, from big donors.
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