Mitt's Shock and Awe

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has quietly launched a 15-city push to secure financial commitments from big-money "bundlers," hoping to reveal a fund-raising network that would establish him as the prohibitive frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president.

Mr. Romney and top aides will meet Thursday in New York with nearly 100 donors—many from Wall Street— at the Harvard Club. Attendees are being asked to raise between $25,000 and $50,000 for Mr. Romney within 90 days, in an effort to post large fund-raising totals quickly, one person familiar with events said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Romney met with fund-raisers in downtown Washington, where he also gave his view of the early nominating caucuses and primaries.

Mr. Romney said he needed to do well in the New Hampshire and Florida primaries and Nevada's caucuses, while emerging from those early states with enough money to convince undecided voters that he would have the financial firepower to get to the finish line.

He said he expected to win in Nevada, as he did in 2008, and that he saw Florida's primary as pivotal, with only two candidates likely to emerge from that state able to compete in the later primaries. Less clear was his thinking on the nation's first nominating contest—the Iowa caucuses—where socially conservative voters dominate and where Mr. Romney placed a distant second in 2008.