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She flies ACM Aviation, a fleet of private planes advertising “white glove” service. He flies AirTran Airways, the self-described “low-fare airline.” She frequents luxury hotels, from the Waldorf Astoria to the Beverly Hills Hotel. He books rooms through Hotwire.com, which offers “cheap travel deals” on hotels to be named later.

She’s a billionaire spending her fortune running for California governor. So is he.

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner have combined to spend a record-shattering $104.8 million in the GOP gubernatorial primary, according to campaign finance reports filed Thursday. But a close examination of the reports by The Bay Citizen reveals stark differences in the spending habits of the two candidates.

Poizner has spent $24.2 million, making him one of the highest-spending candidates in California history. Next to Whitman, he looks thrifty.

Whitman has outspent Poizner at a rate of nearly four to one. Through May 22, she had spent $80.5 million—$68 million from her personal fortune—on a campaign whose central tenet is fiscal responsibility.

Whitman has said she intends to spend as much as $150 million if she makes it past the primary. Her once-ample lead has shrunk, raising questions about her campaign’s spending choices in a state where self-financing candidates historically fail.

The majority of Meg’s money—more than $50 million—has funded increasingly sharp political advertisements aimed at discrediting Poizner. But Whitman doesn’t spend all her money on ads. Her finance report is a chronicle of a campaign in which money is no object. Line item by line item, it documents her spending on private planes, expensive fundraisers and more than $8.4 million for consultants, including several former eBay employees and others connected to former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, her political and business mentor.

The campaign declined to discuss those expenditures.

“Our campaign budget is designed for one purpose,” said Tucker Bounds, deputy campaign manager. “Victory on election day.”

Whitman paid $530,000 to ACM Aviation in installments as high as $78,000. On March 1, Whitman traveled on a chartered plane between Riverside, Oakland and San Carlos—the latter two are a 33-mile freeway drive apart.

Bounds said Whitman does not travel exclusively by charter, but he declined to name specific occasions when she travelled commercially.

Poizner’s travel expenses, by comparison, show payments to Delta and AirTran. His total expenses, itemized as “candidate travel, lodging, and meals” come to $3,477.36. His campaign spent thousands more on air travel and other expenses, although considerably less than the Whitman campaign.

Poizner’s spokesman could not be reached to discuss his spending.

Whitman has spent over $800,000 on fund-raising events. Aside from her own money, she has raised about $16 million from outside sources. Her campaign has criticized Poizner’s fundraising efforts. Poizner has raised approximately $2.5 million, and spent just over $75,000 on fund-raising events.

“Our opponent has not been able to raise money from outside,” Bounds said. “They’re saying that Meg Whitman’s a self-financing candidate. But he’s actually relied on a disproportionate amount of his own money.”

Whitman has lavished money on consultants, although it is sometimes unclear from the records how the campaign benefited. Whitman paid more than $3.9 million to Tokoni, Inc., a social-networking and “story-telling” site founded by three former eBay executives: Rajiv Dutta, Alex Kazim and Mary Lou Song. Filings show that all three founders have contributed the maximum amount allowable to Whitman’s campaign: $25,900.

The company, which was founded in 2008, did not return phone calls. In a message to “our friends and fellow storytellers” on its website, Tokoni announced that the site will be closing to the public at the end of June for unexplained reasons.

Another former eBay executive, Henry Gomez, has been paid nearly $700,000 in consulting fees. According to the latest campaign finance report, Gomez, in turn, has paid out large sums to companies including America’s Best Limousines, a New Jersey-based chauffeur service. A former eBay security head, John W. Endert, has received more than $235,000 as the director of “safety and security” for the Whitman campaign.

Her team of consultants includes strategist Scott Howell. Howell, who worked with Karl Rove, has received more than $3.1 million. Mike Murphy, who advised John McCain and Jeb Bush, has collected almost $680,000, paid to his company Bonaparte Films, LLC. Jeff Randle, who has worked for Pete Wilson and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has collected more than $500,000. 

Sal Russo, an unaffiliated Republican consultant, criticized Whitman for what he called a “campaign by committee.”

“Sometimes consultants saddle their campaigns with too much advice,” Russo said. “You get a mushy message that can’t deliver a victory."

Finance filings often only vaguely describe how consultants spend money. Bounds, who has been paid nearly $180,000, would not answer questions about how consultants have redirected the millions in fees.

“Some of Meg’s closest associates have pledged her support to work from her campaign effort,” Bounds said. “It’s been an incredible value to our campaign.”

Some of Whitman’s highest-paid consultants are out-of-state contractors who worked on Romney’s failed presidential campaign.

Whitman has paid more than $1.1 million to Solamere Capital—a Lexington, Mass. private equity firm that employs Whitman’s son, Griff Harsh IV, and Mitt Romney’s son, Tagg Romney—and its principals, Spencer Zwick and Mason J. Fink.

Early in the campaign Whitman paid Solamere directly, at a rate of $16,000 a month. After her son was hired by Solamere last summer, Whitman directed some of the payments to MJF LLC and SJZ Inc.—companies controlled by Fink and Zwick, respectively, the finance documents show.

Zwick, who was finance director in Romney’s presidential campaign and holds a similar role in the Whitman campaign, has been paid more than $955,000 through SJZ Inc.

Solamere and Zwick did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Whitman’s standing in the polls recently plummeted after Poizner attacked her for her ties to investment firm Goldman Sachs and her stance on illegal immigration.

“It’s a myth that the person with the most money wins,” said Russo, who has worked as a consultant in California gubernatorial campaigns since joining then-Governor Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1966. “Money and self-funding has generally not been a precursor to a successful campaign.”

Al Checchi, an airline executive, spent over $40 million of his own money in a failed Democratic gubernatorial bid in 1998. Steve Westly, a venture capitalist who spent over $35 million on his campaign, also lost a bid for the Democratic primary in 2006.

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and communications director for John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, said that, in the end, Whitman’s spending never would have insulated from Poizner’s attacks.

“Whether she had spent $60 million or $6 million or $600, she was going to be attacked for her time at Goldman Sachs and her stance on illegal immigration, he said. “It’s better to drop from a 50-point lead than from a five-point lead.”

Russo said that the judgment about how Whitman has spent her money ultimately will be determined by the final outcome.

“If she wins everyone’ll say she made a lot of prudent choices,” he said.