As a politician, he's also cast himself as a fiscal conservative, vowing to limit government spending and veto excesses.

And Romney has dismissed financing his own campaign, saying in January that donating any of his personal wealth to his campaign would be "akin to a nightmare." Rather, he said he planned to seek support from a broad grassroots network.

Romney ended up lending the campaign $2.35 million in the first quarter, and as of July 1, the total had climbed to $8.9 million.

That makes Romney the largest source of money for his campaign. He and his staff have also been no slouches at spending.

Package delivery by FedEx runs page after page in the report, even though items are listed 500 to a page. Romney is pouring hundreds of thousands monthly into his Web site, which recently featured a miniaturized image of him walking onto the screen, encouraging donations.

Catering expenses have included $2,300 to the HyVee supermarket in West Des Moines, Iowa, and $6,100 to Chef Molly's Gourmet Solutions in Laguna Hills, Calif.

Both were pikers compared to the money Romney spent last month when he brought about 500 fund-raisers to Boston for a party at Fenway Park and then a phone-a-thon the following day at the TD Banknorth Garden, home to the Boston Celtics and Bruins.

Besides the $31,500 rent for Fenway, Romney spent $40,000 on catering for the crowd. The Garden charges were listed only as "staging," but they totaled $70,000.

The campaign spent another $21,000 on buses.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com