Money in Politics

With all the recent elections and the money involved in running campaigns, I began to wonder just what it was we were spending all this money on, especially in the middle of a world-wide recession. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKdyEPGiM7o. This strikes me as a monumental waste of money, and as vaguely undemocratic.

Our society is based around government for the people, by the people. In Canada, parties are only allowed to spend so much nationally and per riding, which allows all political parties to have an equal voice in each area of the country, meaning that voters are able to decide based on the merits of each candidate. Third party groups are also heavily restricted in order to ensure this equality in each view getting aired.
In America though, there aren't as many limits, the living proof being in the above video clip and the campaign of Barack Obama, who saturated an entire country with his policies and his positions for two years during both the primary and general election campaigns. Between President Obama, Senator McCain and Secretary of State Clinton, over one BILLION dollars was raised and spent to run advertisements, affix lawn signs and generally spread their messages to voters in order to persuade the electorate to vote for them. This kind of extreme spending prevents other points of view from being disseminated, and thus the voters don't get the whole story and cannot really make an objective decision on which person best reflects their views.

Perhaps this difference between the American and Canadian systems of election advertising is due to the systems of governance that each country has chosen to partake. Canada's multi party parliamentary system almost requires that people be allowed to see all options clearly and equally, as cooperation between the parties is more likely and outright majorities in Parliament are less common. Whereas in the American two-party system, there is a greater need for one party to reduce the other into a deep minority status, as it is guaranteed that at each level of Congress, there will be one party that controls a 50%+1 majority in each house, and larger majorities mean that less compromise with the opposition is required.

We have a choice; to allow freedom for ALL views to be heard, or to allow third parties and the wealthy to control who hears what information.