Whale Watch

Posted by Chris Cillizza on WashingtonPost.com's The Fix, an interesting look at where Bush's major supporters are already throwing their support for the 2008 GOP Presidential ticket. A surprising number of supporters for Mitt Romney, although his response to the Big Dig tragedy in Boston has no doubt raised his appearance of electability in some GOP circles. It'll be interesting to see how this continues to shape up, especially for McCain vs. Romney:

In a post earlier this week, we announced the creation of a running list of President Bush's Pioneers and Rangers who have signed on with potential 2008 candidates. As expected, some more names trickled in after the original post so we've provided an updated list below. New additions are in ALL CAPS.

We'll be updating this list periodically as we gather more names. In the meantime if you happen to have a subscription to National Journal magazine, make sure to read Marc Ambinder's piece on the hunt for these political whales:

"More than two years before the first ballots will be cast for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, several potential candidates are quietly but intently cultivating a universe of fundraisers numbering fewer than 700: 'Pioneers,' who earned their designation by collecting at least $100,000 for President Bush, and 'Rangers,' who raised at least $200,000," writes Ambinder.

Here is the Fix's list of the "Whales."

John McCain
Wayne Berman, lobbyist (D.C.) RANGER
Fred Malek, Thayer Capital Partners (D.C.)
Carter Pate, PricewaterhouseCoopers (D.C./Texas) RANGER
Bob Mosbacher, Mosbacher Energy Co. (Texas)
Tom Loeffler, lobbyist (Texas) RANGER
BILL CLEMENTS, FORMER TEXAS GOVERNOR (Texas) PIONEER
RON WEISER, FORMER SLOVAKIA AMBASSADOR (Michigan) PIONEER
KENT HANCE, FORMER CONGRESSMAN (Texas) PIONEER
GERALD PARSKY, AURORA CAPITAL GROUP (California) PIONEER
SERGIO PINO, CENTURY PARTNERS GROUP (Florida) RANGER
SIG ROGICH, ROGICH COMMUNICATIONS GROUP (NEVADA) RANGER


Mitt Romney
Peter Karmanos, Compuware Corp. (Mich.)
David Fischer, Suburban Collection (Mich.) PIONEER
John Rakolta, Walbridge Aldinger (Mich.) RANGER
Dave Phillips, Phillips Industries (N.C.) RANGER
Tom Tellefsen, Tellefsen Investments (Calif.) PIONEER
Anne Dunsmore, Capital Campaigns (Calif.) RANGER
Hadi Makarechian, Capital Pacific Holdings (Calif.)
Herb Collins, Boston Capital Partners (Mass.) PIONEER
Jim Sims (MA) GEN3Partners (Mass.)
Joe O'Donnell (MA), Boston Culinary Group (Mass.) RANGER
Tom Foley, NTC Corp. (Conn.) PIONEER
Eric Tanenblatt, McKenna Long Aldridge (Ga.) RANGER
RON KAUFMAN, DUTKO GROUP (D.C.) PIONEER


Bill Frist
Zachariah Zachariah, cardiologist (Fla.) RANGER
Ken Eldred, Living Stones Foundation (Calif.)
Michael Lebovitz, CBL & Associates Partners (Tenn.) RANGER
Jim Haslam, Pilot Oil Co. (Tenn.) RANGER
Chip Saltsman, former Tennnessee state party chairman (Tenn.) RANGER
Ted Welch, Ted Welch Investments (Tenn.) RANGER
Jeff McWaters, Amerigroup Corp. (Va.) PIONEER