Romney leads race for billionaire funds

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- In the race for campaign donations from the wealthy, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney leads U.S. President Barack Obama, a review indicates.

Romney has drawn the most support from billionaires, with at least 42 contributing to his campaign, while Obama has at least 30 billionaire supporters, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman Jr. had support from 20 billionaires and 12 billionaires, respectively, the Post said, basing its findings on donor rolls and Forbes magazine's list of 412 American billionaires.

While donors are limited to contributing a maximum of $5,000 directly to a campaign, new rules permit them to donate to "super PACs" that run independent ads.

"The only limit on the resources is the willingness of the donors to give," said Anthony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and a former Democratic official. "It doesn't take long to transfer $500,000 from one account to another."

Romney's richest donor so far is hedge-fund manager John Paulson, who Forbes said has an estimated $16 billion. Paulson contributed $1 million to the Restore Our Future super PAC, established by former Romney aides to support his candidacy. The PAC, Romney's campaign and a Paulson spokesman declined to comment for the Post article.

Obama's richest donor is Len Blavatnik, a Russian-American industrialist Forbes said is worth $10.1 billion. The Post said Blavatnik also donated to Romney. A spokesman for the industrialist declined to comment.

"Our campaign is fueled by donations from more than 1 million Americans, 98 percent of which were in amounts of $250 or less," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.