Scott, Crist spend heavily --- but in different ways

The campaigns of Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic challenger Charlie Crist and closely aligned political committees combined to spend about $15.3 million from Oct. 18 through Thursday --- but the two sides took substantially different approaches, new reports show. Scott's campaign and the linked "Let's Get to Work" committee spent nearly $8.68 million during the period, with the spending heavily focused on advertising. As an example, the Scott campaign and the committee sent $5.18 million to the Virginia-based Multi Media Services Corporation for advertising, according to finance reports filed Friday. Let's Get to Work, meanwhile, also sent $1.076 million to the Republican Party of Florida. The Crist campaign and a committee known as "Charlie Crist for Florida" combined to spend about $6.61 million during the period. But much of that spending --- $5.1 million --- involved the committee sending money to the Florida Democratic Party. The parties can use the money for such things as get-out-the-vote efforts.