Presidential election spending is unprecedented; $2.5 billion will have been spent once the bills are tallied, writes Mark Hennessyin Washington
DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL candidate Barack Obama, fuelled by $600 million worth of donations, has gone everywhere in search of votes: even into the heart of computer games.
In Burnout Paradise, popular with those in their early 20s, his image appears on a billboard; in another, the Illinois senator is seen urging players to register.
The care taken by the Obama campaign to get the message across is illustrated by the fact that the ads appear only in games sold in 10 key states.
"I think it is clear evidence that the Obama campaign has more money than they know what to do with," said Washington media analyst, Evan Tracey. "McCain is in a shouting match against a man with a bullhorn."
By the middle of October, Obama had spent $154.5 million to pay for 292,463 campaign broadcasts - nearly twice the spend of Republican John McCain, and the gap has grown wider since.
This week, the Democrat is taking a 30-minute so-called "infomercials" on CBS, NBC and Fox - delaying the start of a crucial game in the World Series baseball by 18 minutes.
The scale of the spending is unprecedented in US election history; $2.5 billion will have been used up once the bills from Senate and congressional campaigns are tallied.
Under US law, regulated by the Federal Electoral Commission (FEC), individuals can contribute up to $2,300 to a presidential candidate's campaign, although contributions below $50 can be made anonymously.
Since his bid for the White House began two years ago, Obama has raised $579 million, with $290 million listed as coming from people who gave less than $200 a head, while his opponent had managed the comparatively paltry $195 million.
In truth, the figures only offer part of the picture, since Obama refused state financing for his head-to-head battle with McCain and thus has not be been confined by spending limits.
McCain has taken state money - which Obama once said he would do - leaving the Republican limited to spending just $84 million since he was selected by his party in September.
In contrast, the Democrat will spend a sum equal to McCain's budget on advertising alone in the final 25 days of the campaign. In just four days last week, 25,000 Obama ads were broadcast throughout the US.
Desperate to compete, the Republican is trying to wriggle out of campaign financing rules by combining his presidential campaign messages with the Republican National Committee's spending on his behalf. The irony is that the rules curbing his efforts are rules he helped to bring into law in the Campaign Finance Reform Act in 2002.
In the days before polling, the Republican Party will spend $65 million on so-called hybrid ads, merging McCain's messages with those of Republican congressional candidates, mixed messages in a land where viewers' attention spans are measured in micro-seconds.
The saturation coverage from the White House challengers, particularly Obama, has meant that single-issue groups influential in past elections - notably the Swift Boat attacks on Democrat John Kerry in 2004 - have been drowned out.
Then, Kerry, thrice-wounded in Vietnam and a holder of a bronze and silver star, suffered badly when other Vietnam vets produced a series of TV ads and a best-selling book seeking to discredit his military record.
Kerry, who had also accepted state financing, did not have the budget needed to counter the charges.
This year, such groups have spent $65 million, down from $192 million in 2004; while so-called "political action committees" (PACs), formed to back particular candidates, have spent just $156 million, as against $434 million.
Although both Obama and McCain have in the past criticised the existence of PACs and the "soft money" donations from unions and businesses that fund them, even here Obama is getting a fair wind. Last week, pro-Obama PACs spent nearly $40 million while those favouring the Republican managed just $27.5 million.
Even though he has created or benefited from the most successful fund-raising machine in election history, Obama has, so far, not suffered from the usual succession of scandal stories that surround the raising of political donations.
The Republicans have charged that some of the money - about $3 million - has come illegally from foreign donors; though even if they are right McCain is likely to have received similar unwanted sums.
But Obama learned more from 2004 than just Swift Boat: he learned of the power of the internet. One of Kerry's opponents in 2004, Howard Dean, raised $45 million from small donors using the internet before his campaign imploded, a lesson Kerry's campaign learned.
One of Dean's key staffers, Joe Rospars, was brought on board the Obama campaign, while one of Facebook's co-founders, Chris Hughes, took leave of absence to work full-time for him.
Like many other websites, my.BarackObama.com, allows people to make donations directly; but its real genius has been to involve supporters as fund-raisers themselves. They can set up their own page, set a fund-raising target for themselves and then approach friends via e-mail, again and again if necessary, to get them to contribute.
Throughout, Obama has been quick to emphasise the "ordinary guy" image of his donors, although it is clear that well over half has been gathered by so-called "bundlers" who round up contributions of up to $500,000 from others.
In addition, both Obama and McCain have set up separate funding organisations to take money from the rich, allowing them to offer up nearly $30,000- a-head in Obama's case and $70,000 in McCain's directly into party coffers.
Obama's Committee for Change is now routing additional millions directly into state Democratic organisations, even though part is used to pay for his myriad of field organisations in the 50 states. Even with the rich, Obama is outscoring McCain.
Although election 2008 is awash with money, it is nothing new in US politics. Taking inflation into account, the Bush- Kerry 2004 campaign is still the most expensive - but that record will have fallen by November 4th.
Even Jimmy Carter's 1976 successful battle against the outgoing president Gerald Ford cost $650 million in today's terms, while Bill Clinton's battle against Republican Bob Dole in 1996 cost just shy of $600 million in today's money.
"Political spending needs to be kept in perspective," says former FEC member and Republican, Bradley Smith.
"Americans will spend about $12 billion on potato chips this year; Coca Cola will spend more on advertising this year than will be spent by all the candidates who have run for president. It costs money to communicate, whether you are talking about cars, cola or politicians."