Many presidential prospects are eying Romney's fundraising operation. | M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO GOP eyes Romney money machine

Now that Mitt Romney has categorically ruled himself out of the 2016 presidential race, the battle is on for the most enduring part of his legacy — his fundraising operation.

Romney teamed with the Republican National Committee to raise $1 billion in 2012 and still controls perhaps the pre-eminent donor list in all of Republican politics. The pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future raised $150 million almost entirely from massive six- and seven-figure checks.


It’s a perfect match for presidential prospects and their allies who have begun quietly building their own finance networks, seeking donors who can write large checks, bundlers who can collect scores of $5,000 contributions, and massive databases of phone numbers and emails from which thousands of smaller contributions can be wrung.

Personal fundraising pitches from Romney are considered a potential wellspring for the Republican Party and its 2014 congressional candidates, while the pieces of his network have become coveted assets for 2016 presidential aspirants.

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Candidates and committees in 2013 paid Romney’s still idling campaign at least $675,000 to rent its fundraising lists, while prospective presidential candidates like Govs. Scott Walker and Chris Christie have cozied up to Romney’s fundraisers and donors in closed-door meetings and fundraisers. Romney himself quietly slipped into Manhattan in December to headline a big-donor dinner for the RNC, where he was a huge hit, sources tell POLITICO.

And last month, Romney, for the first time as an ex-candidate, signed a fundraising letter sent to the Romney for President national direct mail list on letterhead bearing Romney’s name asking for contributions to another candidate — his 2012 vice presidential pick, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who is often mentioned as a possible 2016 contender.

“I selected Paul as my running mate for a reason — he has one of the sharpest minds of anyone I’ve ever met,” Romney wrote. The letter, dated Jan. 17, sought contributions to Ryan’s congressional reelection campaign. “I was proud to welcome him to my campaign last year. And now I am proud to join his,” Romney wrote. “You were one of the Romney-Ryan team’s most loyal and generous supporters, and both Paul and I are grateful for all you did for us.”

Expect to see more mailings like that, along with fundraising appearances like the ones Romney did last year for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and the New Hampshire Republican Party, said Ron Kaufman, a top adviser to Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

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“Mitt has been courted by lots of folks from the day we lost. People up and down the ticket have asked if he would do a letter, an email or an event — or if Ann [Romney] would — and that’s only increased exponentially as buyers’ remorse has set in,” Kaufman said. “He could fill every day, every night three times over. And, that’s only going to expand headed into 2016. Not just on the money side, but Mitt has a huge network of friends at all levels that have been helpful to people.”

It’s quite a turnabout from the days after Romney lost the 2012 election to President Barack Obama, when Republicans rushed to distance themselves from their dispatched nominee, whose sometimes clumsy campaign left his party vowing to chart a new course.

Yet even during Romney’s most cringe-inducing moments, no one questioned his skill as a fundraiser.

He raised far more than any previous GOP candidate, utilizing a slickly produced major donor and bundler program, as well as aggressive direct mail, email and telephone solicitation programs.

The major donors and bundlers who rallied behind Romney have remained in contact with one another, and many were still holding out hope that he might be persuaded to give it another go in 2016, said Kent Burton, a lobbyist who bundled checks for Romney and served on his national finance committee.

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“The fact is that he is not going to run again, but there are still folks who are ardent supporters of his. And if I were out there as a candidate, I would make sure that I was in touch with the right people to be able to take advantage of that at the right moment,” Burton said, adding that moment has not come yet because of the fluidity of the field.

The lead finance officials for the campaign and Restore our Future — Spencer Zwick and Charlie Spies, respectively — have already been wooed by multiple prospective 2016 candidates. That includes Christie, the New Jersey governor who some Romney loyalists believe hurt their cause by embracing Obama in the closing days of the campaign as the two worked together on Superstorm Sandy relief efforts.

Christie met last year with Zwick, who recently told POLITICO that the governor “ absolutely has a shot” at winning over Romney backers, despite being embroiled in a scandal over the allegedly politically motivated closures of lanes at the George Washington Bridge. “Gov. Christie has already won the support of many major financial backers from the Romney campaign,” Zwick said.

Spies declined to comment on his own meetings with prospective 2016 candidates but said, “Spencer Zwick led a historically successful fundraising effort against a popular incumbent president and anyone considering running for president would be well-advised to get advice from him and his team.”

Walker, the Wisconsin governor, last week huddled with megadonors at real estate titan Harlan Crow’s Dallas mansion. Crow, who hosted Romney for a major 2012 fundraiser and donated $2.3 million to super PACs supporting his campaign, hobnobbed this month in a Super Bowl luxury box with Christie, who also made a pilgrimage to Crow’s Dallas estate late last year.

Other prospective candidates and their supporters are stepping up their outreach, too, Crow acknowledged, saying in an interview that this month he expected to “speak with most of the senior people who might figure in to the next election cycle.” As for what he expected to talk about, Crow said “specifics about private conversations are generally private.”

Christie, Ryan and fellow prospective 2016 candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in June traveled to Utah to mingle with Romney, Zwick and their donors at a retreat sponsored by Zwick’s hedge fund, in which Romney is an investor and executive.

It wasn’t just with megadonors that Romney’s 2012 campaign excelled. His campaign built a massive database containing the phone numbers, home addresses and emails of midlevel donors who gave hundreds of dollars a pop.

“It’s the freshest and best Republican list, so there’s obviously a lot of interest,” said Stephen Meyers. His firm SCM Associates managed Romney’s direct mail program during the 2012 campaign, raising $155 million, and currently handles direct mail for the Walker and Ryan campaigns. A sister firm called Granite Lists rents out the Romney campaign’s mail list, while FLS Connect does so for the campaign phone list and Targeted Victory handles the email files.

The campaign received $367,000 in the last three months of 2013 from the firms for list rental — up substantially from earlier in the year — according to Federal Election Commission filings. It’s not possible to determine from the filings which campaigns and committees paid to rent the lists, but Meyers said, “Obviously Mitt Romney is very personally popular still and will be an asset to a lot of candidates during the year, especially in fundraising.”

The highest-yielding mail pieces tend to come when the politician whose list is being rented actually lends his own name to the solicitation. So far, Ryan is the only candidate to benefit from a letter signed by Romney to his national list, though advisers expect more like it soon.

Kaufman said Romney’s team is being careful not to overuse its list but added, “he wants to be very generous with it, because he feels an obligation and a desire to make sure we take back the Senate and maybe add a few seats in the House, if at all possible, and governors also matter to him a great deal.”