Today at boston.com:

President Bush has headlined a fund-raising event to help John McCain finance his campaign to succeed him, but most of the big-money backers who helped reelect Bush in 2004 haven’t pulled out their checkbooks for McCain - or asked their friends to chip in either.

Of the 548 leaders of Bush’s vaunted money-raising machine, about 43 percent have contributed to McCain, a Globe review of finance reports covering the period through May 31 shows. Even fewer of them solicited and bundled donations from others for McCain, as they did for Bush four years ago.

About 25 percent of the elite Bush money team gave to another Republican or, in several cases, to a Democrat, but not to McCain. Nearly a third remained on the sidelines, not contributing to any presidential candidate.

McCain’s struggle to mobilize the Bush fund-raisers is in part a sign of the disaffection among some GOP stalwarts for McCain…

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