Don’t look now, but Attorney General Bill McCollum is doing a decent job collecting money for his Republican gubernatorial race.

Nearly all of the money-related headlines have gone to Naples businessman Rick Scott, who, along with his wife, have poured at least $31 million of their personal fortune into the Republican gubernatorial primary.

But by spending his own money, Scott has given McCollum the entire field of the traditional Republican donors, who helped Charlie Crist and Tom Gallagher raise nearly $30 million in 2006.

McCollum and his allies have spent nearly $14 million so far, about $1 million more than Crist spent in the 2006 primary.

On the collection side, McCollum has received $1.3 million from Florida taxpayers as part of the state’s public campaign financing program, which Scott is trying to get a court to dismantle.

And we reported Tuesday that McCollum’s political advocacy group, a 527 known as Florida First Initiative, brought in $500,000 from the U.S. Chamber (the Florida Chamber endorsed him today). McCollum has helped his 527 collect $1.5 million since July 8. Broken down that’s an average donation of $45,000. Or about $77,000 per day.

Meanwhile, McCollum’s campaign has made another big TV purchase, peppering $1 million across the state for the next month. The buy is mostly — if not all — on Fox News and focuses on Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville TV markets.

Scott, however, continues outspend McCollum about 3-to-1 on TV. A report from ad buyers show’s Scott’s 527 group, Let’s Get to Work, will spend another $1.8 million in the next week. Most of that money is spent in Tampa, Orlando and Miami markets.

Rosemary Currie of Venice got a round of applause from a room of about 400 Sarasota County Republicans today when she asked GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott to sit down with primary opponent Bill McCollum and hash out a deal to end the barrage of negative television advertisements the two are unloading on one another.

“I feel it’s pretty much helping Alex Sink sink our chances,” Currie said, referring to the probable Democratic nominee.

Scott, who compared McCollum to a dirty diaper in one TV spot, has a personal fortune that gives him a decided spending advantage over McCollum, who is running his fourth statewide campaign. And Scott gave no indication that he was about to give that up.

Scott told the woman it was important for him to distinguish himself from his opponent. Then he implied that McCollum was out of ideas for Florida.

“The difference is this,” Scott said at a campaign stop at Trotter’s Dutch Heritage restaurant. “You have a choice between somebody that’s been in office and hopefully tried all of their ideas or you have somebody that’s new that is going to bring their business credentials to the table.”

We were the first to tell you earlier this week of the seven-figure ad buy the conservative advocacy group, League of American Voters, made for McCollum. In all, McCollum and his supporters have spent about $8.4 million on television. Scott’s campaign has spent $25.8 million on TV.

We reported Saturday that the League of American Voters poured $50k in a political advocacy group working on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum.

Now, the conservative “league,” best known for its anti-Obama activism during the federal health care debate, has a seven-figure buy on Florida TV across the state that uses Medicare fraud and federal stimulus money to attack McCollum’s primary opponent, Rick Scott.

Republican attorney general candidate Jeff Kottkamp is airing this ad on TV markets in Tampa and Orlando.

There are too many guns on the table to count (although we’re pretty sure that’s not how the police store their weapons anywhere in the state). We did count the sound of 10 guns being cocked in 30 seconds, which is the unofficial record so far for the 2010 political season…

Kottkamp is in Republican primary with Pam Bondi and Holly Benson.

Republican congressional hopeful Joe Budd moved to Florida after a business failure left him $600,000 in debt. That information comes not from an opponent’s attack ad but from Budd himself in his first 30-second spot before the Feb. 2 special GOP primary.

Budd, who often brings up the the business setback on the campaign trail, says he does so to highlight character issues and to let voters know he understands tough economic times.

“Instead of filing bankruptcy, I worked hard and sacrificed to pay it off,” he says in the ad. “…I understand your fears and concerns, having lived through them myself.”

(more…)