There is a significant contrast between the work of the pro-Rossi independent expenditures by the RGA and BIAW/"It's Time for a Change" versus that of Evergreen Progress and a couple last minute Democratic heavyweights. To be fair, there are some other independent groups spending money, but the size and scope of their efforts doesn't compare to those listed above.

Evergreen Progress's approach has been almost exclusively via TV. Less than $100,000 of their resources have gone towards direct mail. The overwhelming share of their money spent on voter contact has been on TV, with a sprinkling of radio. The additional recent expenditures by AFSCME and the NEA only magnify that emphasis on brute force message dissemination via broadcast media.

Obviously, the RGA and BIAW/"It's Time for a Change" are on TV (and the latter on radio at times), but that's not all. PDC filings show the RGA has spent nearly $100,000 on Internet advertising, which is no small chunk of change in that medium, and nearly $70,000 in newspaper advertising. The organization has also sent seven pieces of direct mail, four of which arrived before voters received mail-in ballots.

BIAW has likewise invested significantly in mail, including at least four statewide mailers thus far, which have largely been coming since mail-in ballots arrived. That has bee supplemented by newspaper ads in a host of small town newspapers (often weeklies).

Of greatest note, the mail pieces from both Rossi-supporting groups are going to a specific targeted universe. BIAW is mailing a consistent group of slightly over 559,000 households. Concurrently, six of the seven RGA mailers cost right around $160,000 each, implying the same sort of repeated efforts to reach a pre-selected group of persuadable voters.

Bluntly, both pro-Rossi groups obviously took the time to identify their target audiences and they're working to reach them in a multitude of mediums. In contrast, the pro-Gregoire groups appear to have pulled out the shotgun to spread the message far and wide in hopes that it sticks in the right places.

Who knows what that means for Election Day, but is an interesting look at divergent ways to reach voters.

Caveat: the one wildcard in such campaign expenditures not by the individual campaigns is the state parties. The way PDC reporting works, we can get a clear picture of spending by political committees before Election Day than that from the candidate's campaigns or the parties, all of which obviously have their own voter contact programs in place through assorted forms of communication.

UPDATE: RGA mailer info clarified.