WASHINGTON — Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are scheduled to meet privately this week in Utah, raising the possibility that the two former governors will find a way to avoid competing presidential campaigns that would split the Republican establishment next year, two prominent party members said Wednesday night.
The meeting was planned before Mr. Romney’s surprise announcement two weeks ago to donors in New York that he was considering a third run for the White House.
Mr. Bush proposed the meeting, according to one of the party members familiar with the planning, who did not want to be quoted by name in discussing a secret meeting.
The original idea was for Mr. Bush, who announced his presidential ambitions in December, to show his respect for Mr. Romney, the Republican Party’s 2012 nominee. The meeting stayed on both men’s calendars even as Mr. Romney took steps to test the presidential waters, moves that could make the meeting awkward.
Aides to Mr. Romney and Mr. Bush did not reply to requests for comment.
Both men have been making a flurry of phone calls to Republican donors and officials to sound them out and gather commitments ahead of what could be a bruising primary race.
In some cases, Mr. Bush and Mr. Romney are calling the same people just hours apart. Many of the contributors and elected officials they are courting hope to stave off a collision between the two that could imperil the party’s chances in a general election.
Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, and Mr. Romney, who was governor of Massachusetts, are neither friends nor adversaries. But Mr. Bush offered little help to Mr. Romney in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, and tensions have grown since Mr. Bush said that he was exploring a presidential bid.
Mr. Bush has been critical of the way Mr. Romney ran his 2012 campaign, and Mr. Romney has raised questions in private about whether Mr. Bush, who has worked in the finance industry in recent years, would be vulnerable to the attacks that so damaged his own campaign against President Obama.
Both Republicans have deep ties to leading Republican fund-raisers, and Mr. Bush, the son of one former president and the brother of another, has already won pledges of support.
But Mr. Romney’s expression of interest, made public in a speech to the Republican National Committee last week in San Diego, has stopped some of the party’s coveted fund-raising bundlers from making firm commitments.
A number of Mr. Romney’s loyalists have made their own phone calls and sent emails asking associates to hold off on any commitments until Mr. Romney makes a decision.
Establishment Republicans are eager for Mr. Romney to make his intentions clear, but he said in a speech in California on Monday that he had no timeline for making a decision.
Update 1/23/15
from the NY Times
WASHINGTON — Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney did not reach an agreement during a Salt Lake City lunch meeting on Thursday on how to reconcile their competing plans to run for the White House next year, advisers to both men indicated after the talk.
“Governor Bush enjoyed visiting with Governor Romney today in Salt Lake,” Kristy Campbell, Mr. Bush’s spokeswoman, said, declining to elaborate.
Republicans close to both Mr. Romney and Mr. Bush were notably tight-lipped about the long-planned meeting, which the two would-be candidates and their advisers were unhappy had been revealed publicly.
The meeting was cordial and touched on both policy and the Republicans’ need to field a strong contender for the presidency in 2016, according to an adviser to one of the candidates who was not authorized to discuss the meeting.
Former Gov. Mike Leavitt of Utah, a close friend of Mr. Romney’s, said he felt “very confident it was a gentlemanly conversation.”
“Every interaction I’ve observed between them has been positive and friendly,” he said.
The meeting was organized by Mr. Bush and scheduled well before Mr. Romney began musing about mounting a third presidential campaign, first mentioned this month in a meeting with donors in New York.
Neither man sought to later cancel the gathering because each was curious about the other’s thinking on the 2016 race, the adviser said.
“It seemed like a good thing to get together to keep the lines of communication open,” Mr. Leavitt said.
Some of the party’s fund-raising bundlers have stopped making firm commitments since Mr. Bush and Mr. Romney declared their interest in a campaign.
On Wednesday, representatives for Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, and Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, refused to confirm the meeting.
But after Mr. Bush was approached by a pair of reporters and a host of well-wishers as he waited on Thursday for a flight from Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington to Salt Lake City, Ms. Campbell said it was simply a chance for the two “to catch up.”
By the time Mr. Bush reached Utah, a group of reporters and television cameras was awaiting his arrival at what is, with the beginning of the Sundance Film Festival, already a busy time at Salt Lake City’s airport.
Even before the trip began, Mr. Bush was making light of how a secret meeting had become a national news event.
At the Washington airport, he posted a picture of himself on Twitter with a group of Delta employees.
“Thank you to the @Delta team for always being great sports — sorry about all of our reporter friends milling around,” he wrote.
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