The Mitt Romney camp plans to announce today that in October, November, and December of last year it raised $24 million, reports The New York Times, the largest quarterly haul since Romney started to run for president in June. That makes for $56 million in total Romney has raised so far, $19 million of which he still has in the bank. For perspective on the fourth-quarter total: Romney raised only $14 million in the third quarter of 2011, second to the then-surging Rick Perry's $17 million. But oh things have changed since then, as he successfully survived wave after successive anti-Romney wave as the campaigns of Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich rose and fell at the end of 2011. Though Romney couldn't really hold onto first place in the polls for very long during the fourth quarter, with today's total it looks like he was winning the fourth quarter fundraising sweepstakes. By comparison, Gingrich is estimated to have raised only $9 million in the fourth quarter, according to CNN, though his and others' official totals are forthcoming.

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