Rubio spent most of what he raised

Marco Rubio made big headlines last week for raising $4.4 million in the last quarter.

The campaign wasn't so noisy about announcing today's figure: They burned through $4 million of that money in the same period, leaving Charlie Crist well ahead in the money race.

Rubio's still in a very strong position, and up front fundraising expenses likely mean that he can return to his donors later in the contest. Still, Rubio would like to be in a position to blow his rivals out of the water financially -- not to be playing catchup -- in a media market that could easily feature two self-financing zillionaires sucking up ad time.

A Rubio aide responded on background to my surprise at the burn rate:

· We had an aggressive TV campaign in April. We spent nearly $1.3 million on television this quarter to defend ourselves from Crist’s negative TV ads. If you recall, this primary battle was effectively waged in April and we won. · We’ve built an unprecedented fundraising base of over 75,00 donors (99% have not maxed out). This is going to pay huge dividends in September and October. · We’ve built our political infrastructure. Unlike the Crist campaign, we actually have a field staff that is covering the entire state and have invested in voter ID efforts. Charlie has not. · We don’t charge the taxpayers for our traveling expenses. · Plus, don’t forget that we can make these costly investments now because our fundraising is on an upswing, we have a big donor base and we have the advantage of access to over $2.5 million in coordinated money.