Please give me figures that mean what they say

The headlines in the political section of the NYTimes this morning (yes i read the journal this morning too and would quote that except there was nothing there - all blank pages with the FauxNoise/NewsCorp watermark)....well the headline was and is:

Democrats Retain Edge in Spending on Campaigns

Well if you read the article and you can here, what was meant was the in head to head spending - your guy's raised money v. my raised money, the Dems outspend the Repubs.  But there are entire races where the Republican hasn't spent a dime because he/she is in a target district that brings in the secret money to run position ads or attack ads or "issue ads" as they are called. These ads outspend Democrats 4:1.  Then there is another cash cow for the Republicans and it comes from sources completely off the reporting charts other than to give "bottom line" figures which, as of yesterday was $294 million 7:1 spent in favor of republican "issues and candidates" (e.g. a dollar spent slamming your opponent is actually a dollar spent on you).

I would quip that this is just another example of freeloading off someone else's dime.