Mitt Romney eked out a minuscule eight-vote victory over Rick Santorum in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses, ringing down the curtain on the first act in the campaign to pick a challenger to U.S. President Barack Obama in the fall.

    MITT ROMNEY won the first battle in the 2012 White House race in dramatic fashion Wednesday, wresting Iowa from devout Christian conservative Rick Santorum by just eight votes.

    The result cemented Romney’s status as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to take on U.S. President Barack Obama in November, but failed to dispel lingering doubts about the extent of his popularity.

    In one of the closest finishes in U.S. presidential campaign history, Romney trailed Santorum by four votes with one precinct left to report.

    But after an agonizing delay, the final votes turned things around and gave Romney a razor-thin 30,015 to 30,007 victory.    

    Romney portrayed himself as the best foil to Obama and said he had the national campaign team and ample fundraising needed to endure the march to the GOP convention this summer.

    Romney is heavily favored in New Hampshire’s Jan. 10 primary, with contests in South Carolina and Florida packed into the final weeks of the month.

    Poised to become the front-runner’s chief agitator, Gingrich is welcoming Romney to New Hampshire with a full-page ad in the state’s largest newspaper that jabs him as a “Timid Massachusetts Moderate.”

    Romney has largely ignored the direct attack so far. He’s amassed vast fortune and built a campaign organization in several states that staffers say will be able to go the distance to the nomination. In a show of force Tuesday, Romney became the first candidate to purchase television advertising in Florida, whose primary is Jan. 31.

    Some of his competitors — most notably Santorum — have given virtually no thought to contests beyond South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary. Santorum struggled to pay for campaign transportation in recent days, never mind television advertising in states beyond New Hampshire.

    He’s spending just US$16,000 to air a television ad on New Hampshire cable stations this week. Romney is spending US$264,000 on television advertising in New Hampshire, US$260,000 in South Carolina and US$609,000 in Florida, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press.

    Gingrich doesn’t have any television ads reserved going forward. But with two debates set for New Hampshire this weekend, he’s likely to use his national audience to drive his anti-Romney message.

    Romney, who finished second in Iowa in 2008 despite a costly effort, barnstormed across the state in the race’s final days, running as a conservative businessman with the skills to fix the economy.    

    Romney’s personal wealth, up to US$250 million, survived the nation’s economic crisis.

    The new records make clear that Romney is much wealthier than President Barack Obama or any of Romney’s GOP opponents. The immense fortune controlled by Romney and his wife, Ann, is worth US$190 million to US$250 million, within the same range as his 2007 presidential financial disclosure records, his campaign said.

    The holdings reflect Romney’s success in running a major Boston venture capital firm and his stewardship of his own investments on Wall Street — a strong base in his drive for influential donors and the Republican nomination.

    Romney’s disclosures describe at least US$3 million in investments from Bain Capital, the Boston venture capital firm he co-founded in 1984. .

    Bain is also the former employer of Edward Conard, a former Romney co-worker and investor who secretly contributed US$1 million to a Romney-leaning political committee, Restore Our Future, before coming forward as the donor.

    In comparison to Romney’s US$190 million to US$250 million fortune, Obama reported assets worth US$2.2 million to US$7.5 million, swelled by royalties from the books “Dreams From My Father” and “Audacity of Hope.”

    Romney has donated the proceeds of “No Apology,” his most recent campaign-related book, to charity.    

    Romney was born March 12, 1947 in Detroit. The son of Michigan governor, George Romney, Mitt founded the investment firm Bain Capital. He ran for Massachusetts Senate but was defeated by incumbent Edward Kennedy.

    Romney took over the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and helmed a successful 2002 Olympic Games. He was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2003 and made a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, but lost to John McCain.

    Friends, co-workers and relatives describe Romney as something of a paradox: a man exceedingly deft at and devoted to making money who has never been entirely comfortable with his own wealth.

    Soon after Romney handed out eye-popping bonuses to top performers at his private equity firm in the early 1990s, an employee invited him to ride in his brand-new US$90,000 Porsche 911 Carrera.

    Romney was entranced by the sleek, supercharged vehicle: at the end of a spin around downtown Boston, he turned to the employee, Marc Wolpow, and marveled, “Boy, I really wish I could have one of these things.”

    Wolpow was dumbfounded. “You could have 12 of them,” he recalled thinking to himself.

    But Romney had frequently driven an inexpensive, domestic stalwart that looked out of place in the company parking lot, a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon with red vinyl seats and a damaged front end.

    Romney has poured US$52 million of his own money into campaigns for the Senate and the White House, but is obsessed with scoring cheap flights on the discount airline JetBlue.

    He has acquired warmblood horses for his wife Ann for six figure sums, yet plays golf with clubs from Kmart. And he has owned a series of multimillion-dollar homes, from a lakefront compound in New Hampshire to a beach house in California, but once rented a U-Haul to move his family’s belongings himself between two of the vacation retreats. (SD-Agencies)