Campaign Advertising and The Dollar Auction

In my opinion, campaign financing (mostly fund raising) is out of control. According to CNN, Obama has raised 450 million USD and McCain has raised 230 million USD (10/1/08). This really isn't that much money when looked at in the grand scheme of US politics, but to me it seems like preventable a waste.

Both campaigns are forced to spend money on advertising, while also try to one-up the other. This reminds me of the Dollar Auction in which someone auctions off one dollar. The catch is both the top-bidder and the second place bidder have to pay up. Lets say that election is worth $1. McCain bids $.98. Obama bids $.99, McCain bids $1. At this point, if Obama doesn't bid $1.01, he will be out $.99. Therefore, he is committed and places the bid. This goes out of control and both parties keep placing bids so that they don't lose all their money. The loser of the 2008 election will have wasted all of his money on advertising. Of course this doesn't translate one-to-one to today's campaign, but I think the parallels are easy to see. Campaign spending on advertising is going crazy and unfortunately, one party's money spent on advertising will be completely wasted in vain. Couldn't this money be spent better somewhere else?

The dollar auction is good for one person only: the seller. So, who is the seller in this situation? The media. They are reaping in crazy amounts of money that campaigns are pouring into advertising.

What can be done? I am not quite sure. Not that this is a necessarily good idea, but perhaps some sort of regulation could be set into place, limiting the amount of money that can be spent on advertising every month. Should the winner of the campaign be affected by how much money they have raised, even if the money is from every-day Americans? Even cigarette companies supported legislation banning advertising, knowing that spending was out of control and they could increase profits by not advertising at all.