On Friday I watched the NBC4 6 p.m. broadcast. During one commercial break, I was told to vote for and against President Obama, for and against Mitt Romney, for and against Tim Kaine, for and against George Allen, and for and against expanded gambling in Maryland.

Political ads are all over the local airwaves, even more so because we’ve got a contested presidential race—in Virginia, at least—and a number of controversial ballot questions in Maryland, on everything from same-sex marriage and immigration to gambling and redistricting. It all makes you miss those sketchy commercials for The General car insurance.

Today the Examiner’s quantifies those ad buys—so far, $170 million has been spent by a variety of groups on national and local political ads. All told, President Obama’s campaign has spent more than Mitt Romney’s, though right-leaning PACs buying up ads somewhat make up the difference. Kaine has spent $7.5 million to Allen’s $5.5 million, pro- and anti-gambling advocacy groups are even at around $16 million (see the ads below), and marriage equality supporters are beating opponents, $1.7 million to $473,000.

If that all sounds like a lot of money, consider this—it’s really not, seeing how expensive advertising in our media market can be:

“Never has so much money purchased so little,” said Stephen Farnsworth, an expert on media and elections at the University of Mary Washington. “It’s very expensive to advertise in the Washington market, and two-thirds of your audience is not voting in your state anyway.”

Only two more weeks until Election Day, and then back to our regularly scheduled ads.