Rick Santorum's main financial backer, Wyoming businessman Foster Friess, said on Wednesday that he would put his money behind Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich if either of them win the Republican presidential nomination.
But Friess said he is firmly of the opinion that Santorum is the best man to take on President Barack Obama in November.
"I said the other day that my favorite choice for VP is Mitt Romney, so it¹s
pretty clear that I would support him," Friess told CNN¹s Erin Burnett,
adding that he had also spoken to Gingrich and had just met his wife
Callista. "When you think of the integrity-packed people we have running,
you realize it is a blessing to grow up in America."
CNN estimated Friess to be worth $530 million, despite media claims that he is a billionaire. "Call me a billionaire-wannabe," he told Burnett. "The
press called me a billionaire and my wife came up and said I must be
squirreling money away."
Burnett said Friess has contributed around half of $729,000 that the
Santorum-backing Super PAC, Red, White and Blue has raised. Friess did not query that amount and said he would be giving more.
But he defended himself against claims that pictures of him standing next to Santorum at two victory rallies suggested that he could be breaching rules about candidates coordinating with their super PACs.
"The lawyers have told us it¹s very simple: we just don¹t talk about the
super PAC. Anyway I have no control over the super PAC, all I do is write
the check. I like writing checks and handing them to the guys who make it happen," he said.
Friess is a born-again Christian who came from modest means - his mother
dropped out of school in 8th grade to pick cotton to help rescue her family
farm from bankruptcy. He made his money through his investment management firm, Friess Associates.
He said Santorum¹s ideas, energy and appeal "all three legs of the Reagan
stool," made him the ideal candidate to take on Obama.
"I'm not so much a friend of his, we have our disagreements, but he is absolutely the best person to win."
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