More of Romney's fortune is plowed into campaign

Candidate has outspent all GOP rivals in Iowa

Mitt Romney with his wife, Ann, Saturday in Altoona, Iowa. Romney said he was unsure of the amount he had put into his campaign during the past three months. (John Gress/Reuters)

JOHNSTON, Iowa - Mitt Romney said yesterday that he put more of his personal fortune into his campaign during the last three months, but would not disclose the amount until after tomorrow's Iowa caucuses.

"I'm sure I made additional contributions in the fourth quarter, but I don't have any numbers for you," Romney said after a house party. "And we're not going to get into the numbers probably until sometime in the middle of the month. Right now, we're focused on voters."

Romney, a former head of Bain Capital who is worth between $190 million and $250 million, has vastly outspent his Republican presidential rivals in Iowa. As of Sept. 30, he reported lending his campaign $17.4 million and spending about $45 million nationwide.

Peppered with questions after Romney's press conference, spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom challenged the notion that Iowans want to know how much money Romney has spent.

"We've had dozens and dozens of town hall meetings in Iowa - not one question about how much money," Fehrnstrom said.

As a Des Moines Register poll published yesterday indicated that he was trailing Mike Huckabee in Iowa, Romney launched a fresh attack on the former Arkansas governor for suggesting President Bush did not read the National Intelligence Estimate for four years.

"That's obviously completely inaccurate and wrong," Romney said. "The president has kept us safe over these last six years and is extraordinarily well-versed in matters of foreign policy. I'm not sure whether Governor Huckabee did the attack as a joke, but this is not a time to be mocking our president. And it was, I think, in bad taste."

Huckabee made the assertion Monday while defending himself against accusations that he lacked familiarity with last month's National Intelligence Estimate that found that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

"The whole perception was based on an ambush question on the NIE report," Huckabee told the Quad-City Times. "From there, it was like, 'Wow.' That was released at 10 o'clock in the morning. At 5:30 in the afternoon, somebody says, 'Have you read the report?' Maybe I should've said, 'Have you read the report?' President Bush didn't read it for four years; I don't know why I should read it in four hours."

Huckabee campaigned in Iowa yesterday and started airing two new television ads. One boasts of his record of tax cuts in Arkansas, though it does not mention tax increases. The other highlights his opposition to abortion, and shows him standing before a banner for the Iowa Christian Alliance, a powerful grass-roots group.

Today, Huckabee plans to fly to Los Angeles to be on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," which returns live today for the first time since the writers' strike.

In Iowa, Romney cast himself as the sober alternative to his wisecracking rival. He used the word "serious" more than usual in his speech and his aides released a statement, titled "No Laughing Matter," that criticized Huckabee's foreign policy pronouncements.

Romney, who only Monday was talking about victory in Iowa, was more circumspect about his prospects yesterday.

"There are a lot of polls going in different directions, as you know," Romney said. "They all say different things. It just points out that this one is just too close to call and I think it's going to get decided on Thursday in a way that will probably surprise all of us. I anticipate either getting the gold or the silver. I'd like the gold."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.