Of all the GOP presidential candidates competing to raise funds, Mitt Romney needs the money least, David Kirkpatrick ovserves in the Times. The founder of a giant private equity firm, he can afford to pay for the race himself. But he's pulled in the most—$20 million—precisely because he needs to show that he's not a Steve Forbes or a Ross Perot.
He did it by leveraging his wealth, and his rolodex, in a savvy campaign, detailed by Kirkpatrick, that began with spending $6 million of his own money to win the governor's race in Massachusetts. Working his network of Mormons and financiers, he built a national operation that's quietly locked up some of the party's most important donors.
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