Which detergent do you use?  Procter & Gamble spent $3.3 billion on media in 2006 to get customers to buy its products. Which beer will you opt for at the end of a long day's work? Beer marketers spent $1.2 billion during that same year to influence your choice. Who will you pick to be your next president? That's another costly decision: The two major parties are expected to blow a combined $1 billion during this election cycle in their quest to land the $400,000-a-year gig.

Most civic-minded folks who care about politics wince when they hear about the amounts of money involved. One typical editorial, in the Orlando Sentinel last April, called the costs of the presidential race disturbing. Even some of the candidates find the sums distasteful. John McCain famously spearheaded the campaign-finance-reform effort, and back in April, Barack Obama felt compelled to tell the Associated Press, "The fact that I am raising obscene amounts of money for this presidential race doesn't make me a hypocrite."

But why all the carping? Don't the stakes justify spending a billion dollars? Microsoft is shelling out $500 million to promote its new Vista operating system; shouldn't a potential presidency entail an equally robust marketing effort? (See costs of some recent ad campaigns versus costs of political campaigns.)  The president, after all, oversees an almost $3 trillion budget (funded mostly by our taxes), decides when to send in the troops (and can do so almost single-handedly), and gets to nominate every new federal judge (most notably, the Supreme Court justices).

Given the magnitude of the decision and the cost of any branding campaign, the election industry's spending of a billion dollars (over a four-year period) hardly seems overblown -- especially for candidates who race onto the field with little or no brand identity. Critics argue that the presidential candidates are forced to spend too much time filling their campaign war chests and that this mad money empowers bundlers, who seek to increase their influence by bringing donors together. But such concerns might have less to do with overall spending than with the artificially low caps on individual contributions ($2,300 for the primary season, $2,300 more for the general election). Is there some study out there suggesting that presidential candidates would be corrupted by a $5,000 donation, but for $4,600, their integrity lives on unscathed?

It's frustrating that while the government can't limit your spending as a candidate, it can limit your donations without violating the First Amendment. So Michael Bloomberg could drop $2 billion to try to get himself elected president, but he can't even donate five grand to someone he thinks would do a better job.

Much of the whining about massive spending stems from critics' elitist view of politics. If we were all conscientious enough to read the New York Times, watch every presidential debate, and attend the church of Russert every Sunday, then campaigns wouldn't have to vie for our attention in the chaotic consumer marketplace. But it doesn't work that way in our democracy.

The pundits who decry high campaign costs are often the same people who rail against low voter turnout. Their angst is contradictory. Turning out voters takes money -- lots of it. In 2004, the Bush campaign spent $345 million, and the Kerry campaign spent $310 million -- both recordbreaking sums, which were credited with increasing turnout to 122 million voters. That $655 million total worked out to $5.37 spent per "consumer."

Even though that's a low per capita cost, the increasing price of campaigns is swamping the public financing program that matches funds for candidates who abide by its draconian spending limits. Meanwhile, the public's support of the program is plummeting. Voters don't seem to want their tax dollars earmarked for candidates they don't support. All of the 2008 front-runners opted out of the program for the primary season, as Bush and Kerry did in 2004.

Fundraising ability does reflect political appeal in our market-based political culture. Given the national mood, it's hardly surprising that both the Democratic Party's establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, and its insurgent, Obama, raised more than $100 million last year, while no Republican did. Nor is money always the deciding factor: The low-budget Republican candidate Mike Huckabee handily upset Mitt Romney's juggernaut in the Iowa caucuses. All in all, 2008 seems to be a particularly bad year to be making the case that money plays a pernicious role in our politics.

Many citizens feel empowered by the chance to put their money where their vote is. Obama's campaign had more than a quarter-million individual donors by mid-January, thanks in part to the instant access to campaigns provided by the internet.

The big money in presidential politics reflects both the resources used to reach the least engaged voters and the surging engagement of millions more. That's not a matter for hand-wringing. That's a cause for celebration.