We've been soaking in a bathtub full of political ads for so long, my fingers are beyond pruney. Though there's great talk of who has how much money to spend on making the suckers, it's not until you can see the true data behind of the ad campaigns compared side by side that you can get a real fix on it.

Ever the masters of the interactive graphic, the Times has maps that let you pit the groups with money side by side to see how much was spent, and where ads were bought. The McCain vs. Obama number is interesting ($90,415,962 to broadcast 57 television ads compared to Obama's $145,064,338 to broadcast 86 television ads) but I was most struck by the DNC vs. RNC as shown in the maps above: $436,015 to $10,080,774. That's a discrepancy. Most of the RNC dough as you can see is pretty geographically targeted.

There are more fun features to play with, read more.

The feature lets you search by issue as well. For instance, a total of $1,356,628 was spent to broadcast five ads related to the presidential campaign on the issue. For comparison? My pal T. Boone Pickens spent $24,026,256 to broadcast nine ads.

It all makes me remember a wackier time in political ads, when Hillary wrapped up some Christmassy goodness, and Bill Richardson gave a pretty stellar and funny job interview, and who can forget — "my plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck. Norris.

What do you make of the differences in spending?

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