Record Spending This Election

I read an article on the New York Times Political blog today that makes me sick. This year's midterm elections, candidates are on track to spend over $3 billion dollars on TV ads alone. According to the Times, as of today $223 million has been spent, and the trend is always to spend most of the money in the last 30 days, so we know there is more to come. I know politicians need to get their messages heard. I would even guess that a better candidate with a better platform could be squashed by someone with more money to advertise, so then it is a necessary to their success. But I wish that money could be spent on something that would improve lives immediately, like feeding and clothing the poor, or cleaning up cities.