George Bush and Michael Dukakis put on a blizzard of last-minute campaign spending, for a combined total of $33.8 million in the final days of their presidential contest, financial disclosure forms showed Thursday. Dukakis outspent his Republican rival by more than $2 million in the last 2{ weeks, but he ultimately failed to stop Bush's march to victory. Their financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covered the period from Oct. 20 to Nov. 28, including bills that were paid off after the Nov. 8 election. Dukakis, who won only 10 states and the District of Columbia, poured out $18 million for his last stand _ much of it going into a TV campaign that featured the Democratic governor of Massachusetts talking to the camera in an intimate manner designed to make him seem less rigid. In the preceding month, Dukakis had spent $10.4 million. The price tag for Bush's final push came to $15.8 million, as he put on his own barrage of commercials and zigzagged across the country campaigning in battleground states. Dukakis showed $42.5 million in net spending for the entire campaign, Bush's $45.3 million. The net expenditures reflect actual spending on the campaign, not including such reimbursable costs as payment for charter plane seats used by the traveling press corps. Dukakis' campaign treasurer, Robert Farmer, said Thursday the Democrats have no reason to feel badly about spending so much money and not winning more states. ``We have nothing to be ashamed of,'' he said. ``It was a very negative campaign and we probably weren't prepared for that and we could have responded earlier.'' Still, Farmer said, Dukakis ran close in several states he did not win, and made a far better showing than Democratic nominee Walter Mondale who won only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia four years ago. ``We are very proud,'' he said in a telephone interview. Farmer noted that in addition to the spending by the Dukakis campaign itself, the Democratic National Committee raised a record $68 million for the election. He said this ``created a level playing field'' for the first time with the traditionally better heeled Republican National Committee. The 380,000 people who gave money to the DNC ``demonstrated there was a lot of commitment to the Democratic party and to Michael Dukakis,'' Farmer said. Each candidate received $46 million from the federal Treasury to pay for their campaigns. The money comes from the voluntary $1 checkoff on individual income tax returns. Both campaigns showed receipts and expenditures in excess of that amount, due to differing accounting practices. Bush borrowed start-up money from the separate fund that is used to pay for legal and accounting compliance with federal election law. In Dukakis' case, it reflected his compliance fund reimbursing his campaign committee for such legal and accounting expenses, said accountant Mary Wong. Dukakis still had bills of $1.7 million, with $4 million available in the bank to pay them off and another $4 million in receivables. Bush had $807,155 in cash on hand, with bills of $764,597 and $911,667 owed to the campaign.
