There's at least one millionaire for every Republican candidate.
The Supreme Court
Citizens United decision, fervently hoped for and applauded by Republicans has created just a
teeny-tiny little problem for them.
Concerns are mounting among top donors and party elites that an influx of huge checks into the GOP primary will hurt the party's chances of retaking the White House. Long-shot candidates propped up by super PACs and other big-money groups will be able to linger for months throwing damaging barbs at establishment favorites who offer a better chance of victory, the thinking goes.
Already, big-money groups have raised about $86 million to support a handful of second- and third-tier candidates—Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former CEO Carly Fiorina and former Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. In some cases, the lion's share came from a handful of ultra-wealthy partisans, including a pair of Dallas billionaires who combined to give $11 million to a pro-Perry super PAC and a handful of donors who accounted for the majority of the $37 million reportedly raised by a pro-Cruz super PAC.
Between the people who are willing to do crazy things like
spend millions on Rick Perry (yes, Rick "oops, what's the third thing" Perry!) and the self-funders, there's going to be a lot of internal bomb-throwing going on for a long time. As it's going now, it seems less likely that a clear front-runner—as Mitt Romney was in 2012—will be damaged by the onslaught because no clear front-runner has yet emerged, and there doesn't seem to be much consensus in the GOP establishment as to who that might be—Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or anyone else. The damage that seems more likely is a longer period of time for these people to get increasingly extreme to try to differentiate themselves and to demonstrate just how batshit the GOP really is.
Of course, it's possible that the Kochs could just step in and stomp on everyone to try to put a stop to this, but even that would be pretty hard to achieve at some point. I mean, if a couple of people believe enough to actually spend $11 million on Perry, killing their dream won't be easy.