Question from Australia for US Citizens

[nessjez]

The presidential election is pretty big news over here and receives a great deal of news coverage.

Most Australians are fascinated at the process as it's so completely different to our own electoral system.

One thing that stands out from all the coverage we see is that an enormous amount of money is spent electing a new President. 

I wanted to ask, in such tough economic times, has the amount of spending not been questioned by the US public?  In Australia there are limits to how much money can be donated to a political party or candidate, and there are limits to what a candidate/party can spend during an election campaign.

Has the subject of limiting spending been raised at all during this campaign?

(and for what it's worth, Australian opinion polls are very much in favor of an Obama win, mainly due to a strong anti-Bush/Republican sentiment here)

[nessjez]

Thanks for your replies.  From an outsiders viewpoint it just seems like a massive commitment of time and money and I'm amazed everyone's not completely fed up with it all by election day!  And for the candidates who don't make it to the line, like Hillary Clinton, I'm left wondering how the spending on her candidacy can be justified.

Over here the leaders of our political parties are selected behind closer doors by the elected representatives of the party, and leadership can change at any time - although it's normal for a Prime Minister (our President) to serve his full term and for an opposition leader to at least be in place for 18 months or so.   Our elections are held every 3 years with the precise election date being set by the government of the day, and election campaigns run for 6 weeks only.  We don't have anything like Primaries.

As you can see, quite different!

[nessjez]

I guess what's wrong with it is that the candidate with the most support should get the most votes, not the most money.