Why some Wall Street donors are pushing back against GOP

>> let's go to "politico" now. with us now, the chief white house correspondent for "politico," mike allen who's here with the "morning playbook." "politico" is looking at how some wall street donors are airing their grievances to gop leaders after the mitt romney debacle. please explain .

>> yeah, mika, i know you're hearing this in your day-to-day conversations. republicans in new york who were such an important part of financing the romney campaign, of financing any national republican campaigns, are really unhappy with republicans . there's the bait-sick issue, the fact that they don't think they got much return on their investment in the 2012 race, but also even since then, republicans up in new york feel like republicans down here have been rubbing it in. the continued emphasis on social issue, holding up sandy aid in the house really irritated a lot of the top donors up in new york . and they feel that the party is not doing enough to diversify. in new york , diversity is a part of your daily life to a lot of republicans , it's very exotic. so as senate candidates, as national republicans go up to new york , they're finding real pushback on giving the way that they did before. senator rob portman of ohio is sort of the senate republicans ' ambassador to wall street . he recently did 12 meetings in two days up there. and he got a lot of pushback. they want to be sure that there are candidates that can win and that the party is going to have a different face that it did in 2012 .

>> you know, if they're all sane like rob portman , steve, that's an easy sell, but rob has to go up and sell a party up in washington that's just out of their mind. they're not selling mitch daniels . they're not selling jeb bush . they're selling some people that are too extreme to win elections. we botched it in 2010 . we botched it in 2012 . and most of these people that rob are going to, they've made a lot of money by making smart investments. they're not going to be suckered into making, you know, a stupid investment in 2014 as well.

>> well, they certainly want to win, but there's also a couple of other fundamental issues here. first, most republicans at least that i know in new york tend to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal . they're with the president on things like gay marriage . they're not interested in republican views on contraception and some other things. they're in a different place on those issues. they left obama because of some of the rhetoric that existed before the 2012 campaign. but that's basically fundamentally where they are. and secondly, i think that as people try to assess blame for what's going on in washington now on the budget impasse and all the mess, i think they are putting it disproportionately on the there's a perception that it's the republicans ' intransigence to be reasonable that's kept us from having a sensible budget policy, and that bothers a lot of my wall street friends.

>> so mike allen , we've been talking about karl rove this morning. does that -- i would guess that doesn't assuage many fears, does it?

>> well, no. and that's a reflection of the same reticence to give again. american crossroads is trying to come up with a new program, something new for them to invest in. but a lot of pushback about that from conservatives who correctly point out that the establishment was against marco rubio in his senate race, was against ted cruz in his senate race in texas. and so there's this real battle between the republican party of the establishment, who wants to give a better face to donors like new york and the conservatives who say look at the leaders who came out despite the establishment.

>> well, in the case of rubio and cruz, the establishment was right 50% of the time. it's not like we were going to lose texas. all right, mike, thank you so much.

>> thank you, mike.

>> have a great week.

>> wur colleague, jonathan martin 's going to join us for a piece that congressional democrats are warning the president that he needs to do a better job of engaging them this