Hard to find anything very meaningful in the GOP money numbers. Rudy earns kudos for an impressive $16 million cash on hand. His campaign is managing its expenditures very well. Romney‘s weak $9 million cash on hand would be a problem, but MittWorld has two strong excuses. First, they essentially print their own money via Mitt’s wallet, so, um, who cares? Second, they’ve spent more money on voter contact in the early states than the competition, which is what has put Romney in the first tier. All true, and money won’t matter too much as long as Mitt is up for at least another $10 to $20 million in self-funding. (If that is true, he should go all in for $25 to $30 million and blow the doors off everybody.) The nightmare would be if Mitt decided to stop underwriting his campaign. The gold-plated Boston operation would go under financial water very quickly. All this cash will count because Romney and Giuliani are about to start putting the big chop on each other. Rudy rolled out Massachusetts ex-governor Paul “DeNiro” Cellucci to put a surrogate hit on Romney this week. Mitt and Rudy are both vulnerable to negative campaigns. It will be interesting to see how this escalates. Romney should worry about a Rudy assault that will trap him on the defensive for the critical next 90 days. Rudy should fear a Mitt trip to the bank to cash in a few more C.D.s, followed by a $10 million negative ad blitz in the early states. And Rudy should keep in mind that in this brawl, Romney is Steinbrenner and the Yankees. Price may be no object.
