Mitt Romney chose the day after his New Hampshire victory to kick out an early release of his fourth quarter fundraising numbers, and he’s certainly got nothing to be ashamed of. It was a fairly impressive haul and his burn rate doesn’t look like it’s all that high for a presidential campaign of that scale. The Hill reports:

Mitt Romney raised $24 million in the last three months and has $19 million cash on hand.

The total is the strongest quarter so far for Romney’s campaign and is likely to dwarf what his Republican rivals report for their fundraising totals. An outside group supporting him has spent heavily on his behalf, allowing him to preserve some of his resources.

Romney raised $56 million in the year.

The haul means he will have plenty of resources to compete through Super Tuesday in early March.

Here are a few of the highlights which the campaign is trying to draw attention to.

• Total Amount Raised In Primary Contributions For The Year: $56 Million
• Amount Raised In Primary Contributions In The Fourth Quarter: $24 Million
• Amount Raised In Primary Contributions In The Third Quarter: $14 Million
• Amount Raised In Primary Contributions In The Second Quarter: $18 Million
• Cash On Hand: $19 Million
• Contributions Received From All 50 States And Washington, D.C.
• No General Election Money Collected
• Mitt Romney Did Not Make A Personal Loan Or Contribution

That last item might be the hidden gem of the report. Given all the talk about Huntsman (who we’ll have more on later today) possibly needing to loan himself money, is Mitt trying to throw a quick elbow near the sidelines? Romney has the money to loan himself if he needs to, but he’s going to make a point of showing that he has enough popular support that he won’t need to reach for his own wallet.

$19M isn’t a bad nest egg to be sitting on heading into South Carolina and Florida. I wonder if this early report might be a not terribly subtle effort to give more potential contributors the confidence to chip in?