Oh, dear. There's talk about "pulling the plug" on Romney.

Romney’s biggest problem is that more than half the money he has collected this spring and summer from his most generous donors is controlled by entities whose priorities may no longer align with his by election day. ...Slate

It's about campaign finance -- about who gets to use which part of which huge donation.  How much goes to the Republican National Committee?  What goes out to state parties needing funds?  How much into Romney's campaign fund? 

And, increasingly, how much is Romney worth to the party and its donors now, fewer than 50 days from an election he seems poised to lose?  How much does a party or a PAC or an individual want to turn over to Romney's flailing campaign when the same money might be more effectively used to reelect a Republican to the House, or beef up the challenge to a Democratic senator?  And what if he's now becoming poison to individual Republicans in races for seats in Congress?

... In other words, Romney’s ability to get out his vote is entirely dependent on the continued cooperation of party organizations. 

The worst scenario for the Romney campaign would come if the national or state parties begin to see his candidacy as a lost cause, or decide to make congressional majorities—or gubernatorial, state row-office or legislative races—a priority instead.  In 1996, Bob Dole’s campaign faced such a reckoning starting after his first debate against Bill Clinton failed to move the race in his favor, and party leaders redirected resources to protect Republican interests elsewhere.  Romney is yet far from that point, but a cascade of further bad news and pessimistic polls could leave him quickly isolated.

“If the national party or the state parties make a decision that the presidential race is not working out, they can shift money down-ballot,” says a lawyer who has served as counsel to a presidential campaign.  “Which the party has the right to do.” ...Slate

And that is what Sasha Issenberg, writing in Slate, sees as the possibility that at some point the "plug" may be "pulled" on Mitt Romney.

It's always all about money.  Except when you're a candidate good enough to pull ahead even when your funding is less lavish...

Comments

[Dan]

You know, we'll get campaign finance reform when it finally dawns on politicians across the ideological spectrum that the current system is extremely bad for them.

Your clue that the scales have fallen from their eyes will be when Karl Rove is given a Stalinist-style purge from the party. As long as he is in good standing, the status quo is unassailable.

[PW]

Unplug Rove, Mr. Plug-ugly? I'd love to see it. (After his sumo wrestle with Dick Cheney on the Mall...?)

Anyway, money = standing. America the Beautiful.