Any Way You Describe It, 2012 Campaign Spending Is Historic

As relentlessly as the candidates have courted voters, they've also shown their love to donors. A recent report by the Center for Responsive Politics places the total cost of the 2012 elections at an estimated $6 billion, which would make it the most expensive election in U.S. history.

President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney both rejected federal public financing — another first — and each of them collected nearly as much as the entire field in 2004. That's largely due to many of the Watergate-era laws limiting campaign money that have been nullified or circumvented. The 2012 presidential election cycle marks the first since Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that swept away key restrictions on money from corporations and the wealthy. Each side had its strength. President Obama's four million small donors have contributed online or even by text message. At the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, analyst Bob Biersack says it's not just about technology — or liberals. "There's nothing partisan about it," Biersack says, "You have to have some kind of spark." Meanwhile, Romney's big-money backers also have been making contributions of a million dollars or more, often in secret, to superPACs and so-called social welfare organizations.