Sarah Palin hasn’t said whether she’ll run for the White House come 2012, but, if she does, she may face some competition from Mitt Romney.

Romney, who failed to clinch the GOP nomination this year, founded the Free and Strong America political action committee soon after dropping out of the race last spring. According to Romney, the PAC would be used to help bolster his party peers in battles across the country. His spending habits, however, indicate that Romney may be padding his own coffers to keep his career afloat ahead of the next election.

Of the $2.1 million raised for Free and Strong America, only $244,000 has been spent on other Republican candidates, many of them unopposed or in shoe-in races. And, not surprisingly, many of them supported Romney’s own presidential bid. The Boston Globe provides some of the financial nitty-gritty:

Qualifying for a donation from the committee did not necessarily depend on a candidate’s need for financial assistance. U.S. Representative Rodney Alexander of Louisiana got $4,600 and his GOP colleague Lamar S. Smith of Texas received a $2,300 donation, although both had no opponents. They each had endorsed Romney in his presidential bid.

Mississippi’s U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, who threw his support for Romney, was easily favored to win reelection, but he still got a $2,300 donation from the committee. Cochran won with 62 percent of the vote. Another Republican senator, Lamar Alexander, a popular Tennessee Republican who was under no threat of losing his seat, got a $2,300 check from Romney as he cruised to victory with 65 percent of the vote.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said this work shows that the PAC’s “level of financial support was extraordinary.” He also defended Romney’s motivations, saying, “The main purpose of Mitt Romney’s PAC is to enable him to travel around the country on virtually a full-time basis to campaign and raise funds for candidates and to promote policies that will strengthen America.” Too bad most of the money has been spent on aides and advisers who have worked closely with Romney over the years, even back to when he was governor of Massachusetts.

One of the Free and Strong America committee’s largest expenditures was to a firm owned by Spencer J. Zwick, a close Romney aide, which was paid $221,794 from April to November. Fehrnstrom said Zwick takes no salary but uses the money paid to his firm to pay ongoing commissions to several Romney fund-raisers who served on Romney’s presidential campaign staff.

Another $250,000 went to pay salaries and consulting fees, including $115,000 for Romney’s senior political staff — Beth Myers, Peter Flaherty and Fehrnstrom — all of whom had also served in top posts in the governor’s office and in his presidential campaign.

Romney hasn’t broken any laws, nor has he done anything necessarily unheard of, but that doesn’t mean it’s right, says Paul S. Ryan, associate legal counsel to the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center: "This is not uncommon and not illegal, but it is unfortunate and deceptive to tell donors their funds are going to help candidates when in fact a big chunk is used to further the career of the political person who created the PAC.” The only thing donors can do, insists Ryan, is keep an eye on patronized group’s finances: “The legal reality is contributor beware. It would be wise for donors to look at the track records."

Unless, of course, if you’re looking to help Romney, in which case may you should throw Free and Strong a few bucks.