My guy in the Romney campaign always keeps a sharp eye on the fundraising numbers, and has some intriguing ideas of what they’ll mean for the type of campaign from here on out:

“Everybody’s finding that they’ve got less money than they expected to have at this point, and that the cost of fundraising is higher,” my Romney guy said. “Everyone has far fewer net dollars than anybody predicted. McCain set up a Fortune 500 Company and found out that he had only made the Fortune Ten Thousand. Let’s say Fred Thompson raises $15 million next cycle, that may leave $7 million for media – spread over Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Florida. That’s not even counting February 5th (the Super Duper Tuesday with many large states voting). That’s taking one throw in every state, maybe two in Iowa.”

Based on the lack of funds for most candidates, “It’s either going to be an all negative campaign, or an all positive campaign. Nobody has enough for two tracks of advertising, except maybe Romney.” When he says two tracks, he means, one positive “I’m fighting for your values” and one negative “You can’t trust my opponent, because he blah blah blah.”

My source didn’t go into it (he didn’t have to, really) but I’d note that a candidate who can self-finance the way Romney can will have a major, major advantage in getting a message to voters as these primaries come rapidly, one after the other.

I also asked my guy about the Gallup poll showing 29 percent of Americans say they’ve never heard of Mitt Romney, and my disbelief that a man who’s been on the cover of Time and Newsweek can still be so unknown.

“If he were on Entertainment Tonight three nights in a row, he would be at 100 percent name recognition,” my guy said. “That’s what it takes to get past the universe that’s aware of the race and reach the people who aren’t paying attention. The people who read Time are already aware of him. We need to reach those who don’t read Time, and to do that, it generally takes paid media.”