$53 million
Amount the top nine Republican candidates spent through September, compared with $132 million spent at the same time four years ago. The sum is even lower than totals reported during the same period in the 2004 and 2000 primaries — when most candidates still were abiding by campaign spending limits in order to receive public matching money. “Even as experts predict that the 2012 presidential race will be the most expensive in U.S. history, a funny thing is happening on the way to the Republican nomination: It’s becoming one of the cheapest primaries in a more than a decade,” Bloomberg reports.
Connect:
Why do they need to spend additional money when the networks are giving their own free reality show in the form of these constant, pointless debates?