As Kevin O’Leary comes closer to deciding whether he’ll run for the Conservative leadership, one of his recent calls has been to veteran Conservative strategist John Capobianco, iPolitics has learned.

“He asked if I was still available and I said that I was. I said I was undecided and I was looking at a few candidates, but hadn’t made up my mind,” Capobianco said on the phone Wednesday from Toronto. Capobianco spoke to O’Leary the weekend before last.

“I said that I wasn’t ready to make a commitment as yet, but that I thought he would be a serious contender … with respect to the visibility he has in the media and strong knowledge of the economy,” he said.

A senior partner and the national practice lead for public affairs at Fleishman-Hillard, Capobianco has plenty of campaign experience — co-chairing John Tory’s 2015 Toronto mayoral campaign, Christine Elliot’s Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership bid — and running twice federally himself in Etobicoke.

He had been a senior advisor to his friend Tony Clement’s Conservative leadership campaign, but was freed up to help another candidate when Clement dropped out in October.

“He had heard that I was chairing Tony Clement’s campaign and, of course, he and Tony had had a number of conversations when Tony was still in the race,” Capobianco said.

One of those meetings took place at O’Leary’s Muskoka cottage in July, shortly after Clement launched his campaign.

But Capobianco is just one of many getting calls from O’Leary.

O’Leary told the Toronto Sun‘s Joe Warmington this week that he’s “interviewing strategists, campaign managers and fundraisers, as well as lawyers familiar with Conservative and Elections Canada rules.”

“He’s calling the right people to gauge their support and interest,” Capobianco said. “He’s actually taking it up a notch and talking to people and trying to see if there are folks who would rally around him and come on his team.”

The Globe and Mail reported last week that O’Leary met with former Liberal party pollster Martin Goldfarb, and had discussions with Todd Halpern, vice-chairman of the Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation.

Another well-known Conservative strategist, who didn’t want to be named, told iPolitics he spoke with O’Leary a month ago and found him thoughtful and polite as he probed his opinions on the field of candidates.

O’Leary was conspicuously present at the first leadership debate on November 9 in Saskatoon, and though he has until February 24 to enter the Conservative race, Capobianco said he expects he’ll make a decision well before then.

“He now realizes that if he does wait until February, it’s not going to be as easy as he thinks,” he said. “Name recognition goes a long way, but he’s going to have to go town hall meetings and participate in debates.”

The next Conservative leadership debate — and the first bilingual one — takes place next week in Moncton.

Though born in Montreal, O’Leary doesn’t speak French. Last January, he dismissed that as an obstacle, saying his DNA is in Quebec and he knew “how Quebec works”.

A bigger obstacle, however, could be his contractual obligation to the American reality TV show, Shark Tank.

O’Leary let it slip in May, according to Maclean’s, that he’d recently signed a new two-year contract. The ninth season is reportedly going to begin filming in June 2017.