I was tough on Romney yesterday. But this is a nice bit of news for him:

Mitt Romney’s reeling campaign received a much-needed $5 million jolt of donations yesterday that aides say poured in from more than 10,000 contributors backing the former governor as he prepares to do battle in Michigan.

It’s actually less the money that’s good news – lack of funds was never going to be the Achilles’ Heel of the Romeny campaign — but the response, which suggests his base isn’t dispirited by the recent second-place finishes, and still believes he can win.

Elswhere, Jen Rubin notices the “dog that didn’t bark,” in that the Romney camp hasn’t sent out one of its usual, frequent, “here’s what’s wrong with our opponent” e-mails since New Hampshire.

One strategist told me yesterday, “Jim, I’ve been on a lot of losing campaigns. I know what happens when the handwriting is on the wall. If the Romney campaign stops going negative, it’s because they don’t want the last impression of their campaign to be, ‘The Jerk Who Went Negative On Everybody.’ They’re readying a positive final impression, so that if they lose, he’s going out on better terms than he would have a week ago.”

I’m a bit skeptical of this consultant’s take, but I’ll let you the reader decide. I think Team Romney may have just concluded that going negative just wasn’t working for them, and that it was time to “Let Mitt Be Mitt,” be wonky, be a gosh-golly-gee optimist, be the economics, data and numbers guru and see how well that plays on familiar territory for him.

UPDATE: I’m getting quite a few folks – some campaigns even – writing in to point out that about $3.5 million is general election funds that Romney can only use if he wins the nomination. Like I said in the post, the fact that anybody’s still willing to open up their checkbooks for Romney is the better news for his campaign.

The money is gravy, or at least until one or more of Romney’s five sons says, “Uh, Dad, about the inheritance…”