How much dollars will the whole 2008 election cost America atogether?

The reported spending by candidates in the United States to become elected is so immoral that it makes me shudder! ALL that money to get to a position of power! Something really stinks. What happened to just plain ole posters? Plain Town Hall meetings, going about your constuituants? That is a thing of the past for certain. That a candidate has to canvass for BIG bucks is discriminating, the common working man simply cannot comprehend that amount of money going to one campaign. The people who have the guts to run for a government position need to find a new way to restore common sense to this type of revenue output. It's like open season, bill the campaign, they'll pay anything to get the message out. SICK. All of the money the many candidates have relinguished could feed the world, fill everyones' gas tanks and still some left over for a rainy day. We live in a very high cost and unstructured society and we sit here and grumble about it and unfortunately for us grumblers, we have no say in it nor can we find a method to change it. Until changes are made, billions of dollars will be spent voting in a president who may or may not be of help to the nation. Dragonfly77

I'm sure the entire election including the primary battles will gobble up hundreds of millions of dollars. But look at all the wonderful entertainment! LOL Seriously, the primaries and the conventions bring many many millions of dollars of much needed revenue to the host cities so all this spending is not altogether a bad thing. The Pennsylvnia primary brought nice windfalls Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The conventions will give a real financial boost to Denver and LA.