WASHINGTON -- Scaling up is hard to do. Rick Santorum, the scrappy presidential candidate who quit the race on April 10, found that out as his campaign went from a small operation that mainly involved the candidate driving around Iowa to a major effort aimed at knocking off a well-financed rival, the now presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
At the end of March, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday, Santorum's campaign found itself nearly broke, with $1.8 million cash on hand and $2 million in debts.
The report, covering receipts and expenses for the month of March, showed Santorum raising $5 million and spending $6 million as he sought to beat Romney.
The biggest expense, as with most campaigns, was media at $1.6 million. Direct mail was the second biggest expense at $1.1 million. The latter was likely designed to increase Santorum's fundraising, which lagged that by Romney (and much of the rest of the field) until January.
Santorum's campaign also spent $617,825 on chartered air flights, $447,441 on phone communications and $398,620 on list rentals.
The campaign's debt had increased by $1 million from February to March, which must have been a concern when Santorum decided to drop out of the race in April. The majority of that debt must be paid to Santorum's longtime top political and media consultant John Brabender. The campaign owes Brabender's firm $760,008, up from $489,383 at the end of February.
This story has been revised to make clear that the Santorum campaign owed $2 million but still had $1.8 million to cover its debts at the end of March.