Crowley Political Report

During the period of Aug. 7 to Aug. 19, Rick Scott loaned his Republican campaign for Florida governor $12 million bring the total he has given his campaign to $38.9 million.

Bill McCollum raised $163,000, bringing his total $7.7 million.

As we all know by now those figures only tell part of the money story.

Florida First Initiative, a McCollum support group has raised and spent  $5.8 million as of Aug. 19, with nearly half of that money arriving after July 30.

Florida First Initiative is a conduit for other "organizations" such as Citizens Speaking Out Committee, Floirda Liberty Fund, League of American Voters, Freedom First Committee, People for a Better Florida, Committee for Florida Justice, and others.

Most of these are just make-believe groups designed to funnel millions of dollars to favored candidates while making it difficult to determine who is really behind the cash flow. It also gives candidates an ability to shrug and say "golly we don't know where they get the money but we're sure glad they are giving it to us."

Of course many of these groups are sharing key staff with the candidate. This is not something that is exclusive to McCollum. Both Democrats and Republicans do it.

Scott has his own make-believe organization - Let's Get to Work. One key difference - nealry all of  the $12.6 million raised by LGW has come from Scott's wife.