Businessman Eldon Roth held a Sioux Falls fundraiser for Romney last year and donated $190,000 to the Romney campaign in 2010, Politico reports . Roth has also donated to Romney's 2008 campaign , as well as other Republican candidates.

America's industries and domestic markets are, in fact, breeding grounds for innovation. A young Eldon Roth held a blue-collar job in a cold-storage plant where beef was frozen soon after it was butchered. His idea: Instead of slowly freezing the meat in walk-in freezers, why not place the beef on conveys and pass it between two supercold drums, instantly freezing it to lock in flavor? Eldon now owns a very large jet. Far more important than that, he has created hundreds of jobs.

Romney hasn't given any comment on Roth or "pink slime," the nickname given to lean finely textured beef. The low-cost product is rendered from the mostly fatty outside trim of cow carcasses or leftovers from other cuts and treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens that might have emerged during processing. The product has been removed from many school districts and retailers as a result of public outcry over its safety and nutritional value. But politicians including Texas Gov. Rick Perry say it is safe and has been unfairly given a bad reputation.