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Polling. Consultants. A party at the top of the tallest building in Arizona.

In politics, how much money candidates raise matters — but so does how much they spend.

In the Congressional District 8 race, the candidates fronted money for consultants, polls, travel, catered events and fundraising efforts last year in hopes of positioning themselves for this year's election, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Democratic incumbent Gabrielle Giffords also continues to attract a large chunk of her money from Washington-based political action committees, which make up slightly more than a third of her total money raised.

Records show Giffords spent more in 2007 — $262,872 to Republican Tim Bee's $124,448 in expenses — but she also had a lot more in the bank. Giffords' spending amounted to just 18 percent of her money, while Bee's then-exploratory committee's spending represented 44 percent of his cash.

Bee said spending that money helped him decide to run for Congress.

"We did polling, we did vulnerability studies," Bee said. "You do research on yourself."

Bee spent about $40,000 on consultants and lawyers, including $21,000 to the Phoenix-based consultant Nathan Sproul. Another $18,000 went to campaign manager Meg Econ.

Bee also spent $3,200 throwing a catered fundraiser at The Arizona Club, a venue at the top of Phoenix's Chase Tower — the tallest building in Arizona. Another $1,500 was spent on other catering, and $1,000 was spent on professional photos.

The Giffords' campaign, meanwhile, spent about $4,200 on travel to places such as Salt Lake City, Chicago and Atlanta. Almost $8,000 was spent on meals and catering. The campaign spent $21,000 for a mailing by Emily's List, a political group that endorses pro-choice female Demo-crats. And state Rep. Steve Farley, a graphic designer, was paid $1,000 to design an online illustration.

Bee said the rate at which his campaign committee spent is evidence he wasn't skirting the state's resign to run law last year as some Democrats claimed. Money being raised, he said, was being spent on exploring his viability — not bundled in the bank.

"One of the criticisms of an exploratory committee is that you're raising funds to amass for a campaign; we were running a legitimate exploratory committee," Bee said.

About $110,000 of Giffords' money went to pay for campaign consultants, people she says have allowed her to focus less on raising money and more on serving in Congress.

"My time is better spent talking about public policy matters," Giffords said in an interview from Washington Thursday afternoon, pointing to the large amount of phone calls and paper work raising money can produce.

So far, it seems she's made a return on the investment.

Giffords, who calls her campaign "frugal," still had $1.3 million on hand at the end of 2007. Bee had $161,000 in the bank.

As a candidate who campaigned in 2006 against the influence of special interests in Washington, Giffords said the support from PACs doesn't conflict with her criticisms of big money influences in politics.

"Those are not some mysterious PACs," she said, stressing her support from firefighters, teachers and environmental groups.

She also found support from Boeing, Federal Express and Southwest Gas, each of which donated $1,000 to her campaign in the fourth quarter.

In the 2006, Giffords received $625,000 from PACs — a quarter of her overall fundraising in that race.

The candidates are collecting the majority of their money from Southern Arizona, but Giffords has seen greater support so far from Washington donors and political action committees than Bee.

About 56 percent of Giffords' reported independent itemized donations — those that are $200 and more — came from Tucson and surrounding areas. Eight percent of those kinds of donations came from Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas. But that doesn't account for about 12 percent of Giffords' donations, small ones that are not disclosed.

The campaign said that in the fourth quarter, 78 percent of its contributions came from Arizona.

Meanwhile, Bee collected 69 percent of his independent itemized donations in Southern Arizona. The campaign says 93 percent of its total raised is Arizona money.

The financial success of Giffords' reelection campaign is tied, in part, to her support from political action committees — business, union and political interest groups that have funneled about $500,000 into her campaign.

In comparison, Bee has raised only about $9,000 from PACs — less than 4 percent of his overall donations.

His donations include $250 from Coca-Cola and $2,000 from a Republican group called Leadership for America's Future. He also brought in money from two health-care-related companies: $3,500 from Centene Corp. and $2,000 from Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company.

PACs are allowed to donate $5,000 to a candidate per election "cycle." The primary and general elections each count as a cycle, allowing $10,000 for the full campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.

But while the PACs can give the full $10,000 now, the candidates can spend only up to $5,000 before next year's primary.

Only about $10,000 of Giffords' $500,000 in PAC money is from the state, since PACs are typically based in Washington.