The New York Times reported that more than 300 million dollars has been spent on campaign advertisements from April to October of this year.  That's an insane amount of money.  I find it hard to believe that anyone has that kind of money to just throw around for some t.v. time.  I mean, I know that it's important for the candidates to get their message out there but come on, in a time where a lot of Americans are forced to make a decision between paying their light bill or getting food for the family our candidates are pipelining millions of dollars into mass media outlets just so they can be heard.  Is it really that serious?  If that kind of money can be raised in a matter of a year or so by two people, imagine what could happen if about two-hundred people with similar influence put the same effort in raising that kind of money, but spent it on something more urgent, like our economy or our national debt or maybe even the real-estate crisis that a lot of homeowners are facing right now.  I know that this political season has been more of a spectacle than a a campaign and the race for the White House has been more like an amazing race on some reality t.v. show, but the current issues that the American people are facing right now should be taken care of right now - not just talked about.  They should not be left up to the current president to sort out because obviously there's a certain level of incapability that he's been facing for quite some time.  I think that Barack had the right idea when he said that the candidate should multi-task meaning taking care of the "American situation" and still proceed with the campaign, but I'm not seeing any physical followup to that statement.  Spending 300 million dollars on advertising tells me where the attention of our candidates is being focused - on their own agenda.  To be honest, I don't see why it costs so much.  Surely there are thousands of thirsty film and television production students out there who'd love to shoot a commercial - free of charge.  They'd probably be beating down doors just to get a shot at it.  You know, that would make a good reality show.  Have a dozen aspiring film directors and writers go through grueling tasks just to have a shot at shooting (no pun intended) presidential campaign advertisements (I like to call them commercials.  I don't know why they trying to sound all sophisticated).  And the money that's made off of the show can be used to fund the campaign advertisement (commercial) program or C.A.P. that way the candidates can focus on raising money that will benefit the country that they're trying to woo into voting for them.