The top four major candidates for Salt Lake City mayor have opened their spending spigots, with nearly $400,000 going for advertising and printing in August for their last-minute efforts to get beyond the Sept. 11 primary.

Keith Christensen, Jenny Wilson, Ralph Becker and Dave Buhler are driving hard to primary election day on Sept. 11, a newspaper analysis of their latest campaign finance reports shows.

They are spending their money on video production, broadcast time, printing, lawn signs, highway billboards and mailing brochures — in short, all kinds of advertising.

While the leading four players realize Sept. 11 is now-or-never, Wilson alone seems content to keep at least some money in her pocket and is stashing cash, because she believes she has a good chance of getting through the primary election. Wilson has led, although at times just barely, in all public opinion polls analyzing the race.

"I did just make a big (advertising) buy this week," she said Friday. "And so some of that ($107,000 cash seen in her latest report) is gone," said Wilson, who is a Democratic Salt Lake County councilwoman. But in the past month, she appeared confident enough to donate $700 to others, sending $400 to County Mayor Peter Corroon's campaign fund, $400 to Utah Children and $100 to Utah Open Lands.

But for Christensen, Becker and Buhler, their spending reports show clearly that they see Sept. 11 as a main obstacle in succeeding Mayor Rocky Anderson next January.

"I can't say I'll spend every last dime" on the primary race, said Becker, who is the minority leader of the Utah House. "But we are holding nothing back. We were the first to go up with a TV spot, and right after Labor Day we'll be on all the local" TV stations. Becker had $88,000 in cash as of the end of August and had spent $89,000 on advertising last month alone.

Like all the other candidates, Becker is counting on an aggressive grass-roots effort. He's walked door-to-door since March 1. "But the media is so expensive; we've basically been fund-raising just to afford media."

Buhler, a former GOP state senator and current a city council member, said "you have to win the first election first" before you consider your final two-month campaign.

However, both public and private polling tells Buhler he'll make it through Sept. 11, "so we will have some money left over" to start the final race, he said. "We have an idea on how much that should be, but I won't talk about that strategy."