Bill McCollum Has Only $800,000 Left; Rick Scott Has Spent $21 Million

By Kyle Munzenrieder Mon., Jul. 12 2010 at 3:00 PM

Categories: Politicks

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McCollum needs some dollar, dollar Bills.

Bill McCollum can't catch a break. He has twice run for senator, both times unsuccessfully. Finally found himself in the Attorney General's chair, and is now running for Governor. He was ahead in the polls, too, until billionaire Rick Scott started attacking him from the right with his big help from his own pocket book. No McCollum's campaign account is down to a pitiful $800,000. Rick Scott meanwhile has already spent $21 million (mostly of his own money) with no signs of stopping.

When it seemed that McCollum would have few serious challengers for the Republican nomination his campaign originally planned on keeping a low spending profile until this week. Though controversial billionaire businessman Scott started spending millions of his own money and plastering television with campaign ads, McCollum was forced to start shelling out dough.

After burning through around $4 million to counteract Scott's $21 million, McCollum's campaign is now down to $800,000. That's not a lot of money to try and reach Florida's 3,981,770 registered Republicans. To put in prospective, that's less than $0.21 per potential primary voter. Maybe he can buy them each one of those pom pom stickers with the googly eyes that says "McCollum for Governor" and a lucky penny.

Rick Scott now has a corresponding lead in polls, and his seemingly bottomless coffers should be sending shivers down the spines off presumed Democratic nominee Alex Sink. However, she could translate the appearance of Scott trying to buy the Governor's chair and his controversial right-wing views into a bigger influx of cash from Democratic voters than she could from running against the relatively milquetoast McCollum.

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