This forum is hosted for free by Boardhost. Create your own free forum!
1 of 1- Common Sense
- Exchanger
Offline - Registered: 2/16/2015
- Posts: 3,258
Donors changing tune on Trump
Donors changing tune on Trump
Read the full story here:
Republican donors are quietly coming around to the idea that Donald Trump could be their party’s nominee for president.While many major Republican donors still cannot abide the idea of Trump as their party’s 2016 standard-bearer — and some remain flat-out in denial about the strength of his candidacy — interviews with GOP business owners and CEOs in six states suggest shifting attitudes toward the controversial billionaire.
Trump has to date rejected financial support from wealthy donors, saying he does not want to owe them if he gets into office. But winning the acceptance — or even the favor — of donors could prevent a big-money assault against Trump and ultimately benefit him in a multi-billion dollar general election. Donors who have either given the maximum $2,700 contribution to Trump’s campaign or plan to give vastly more than that in a general election, say they are noticing a growing acceptance of Trump among their mainstream Republicans friends and business associates.
When Republican donor Ernie Boch Jr. threw a party for Trump on the grounds of his 16,000-square-foot mansion over the summer, most of his friends in Boston’s elite corporate and political circles thought he was “nuts” for supporting the billionaire’s unlikely presidential bid.“People were going crazy that I was having him over to my house,” Boch says of his summer fundraising bash for Trump.
“A lot of my friends were afraid to say that they were supporting him because it just wasn’t politically correct.”Now, nearly six months later, Boch, a car dealership mogul and supporter of the Massachusetts Republican Party, says friends and business associates he regards as moderate or “establishment” Republicans “are coming to terms with the idea that this is the guy; this is who is going to be the GOP leader.”Phoenix-based business owner Bob Ellis considered himself an establishment Republican all his life “until Mr. Trump came along.
”“I always vote the party line except in this case, because I am not sure what the party line is,” said Ellis, the CEO of AvAir, an aviation components trading company. “There’s a lot of people like me who have the same feeling. … I think a lot of people have changed,” said Ellis, who has given $2,700 to Trump’s campaign.Richard Edwards, president of an electrical contracting firm in Pennsylvania, is another lifelong establishment Republican who has given the maximum contribution to Trump’s campaign.“There have been a lot of people who were on the fence at the beginning,” Edwards said when asked about Trump support within his business networks. “My friends are now seeing something in him. … He just understands business, and he’s right in saying that America is a business. It’s a multibillion-dollar business.
”Wealthy Trump supporters interviewed for this story say they want to give the GOP front-runner significantly more money than allowed within the limits of campaign finance law and by Trump’s self-imposed rejection of super-PACs.Boch tried to donate the $87,000 cost of his summer fundraiser as an in-kind contribution to Trump’s campaign, but he was refunded all but $2,700 to comply with Federal Election Commission rules. He says he would be willing to give Trump more than $1 million if only the billionaire would allow a vehicle to accept it.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”