President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is likely to have more money than any presidential campaign in history. Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign, when you factor in the super-PACs supporting him, could have even more money than that. Both candidates will, in other words, have more than enough money to get out their message, attack their opponent and support their ground game. Even as they’re spending all this money on paid media, the campaigns will receive an almost infinite amount of free media from newspapers, television, magazines and blogs that will spend the next seven months doing nothing but covering the presidential campaign.

Yet, at the presidential level, money isn’t everything. In fact, sometimes it’s not even the main thing. Note that Rick Santorum, who was outspent many times over by Romney, nevertheless bested him in a number of Republican primaries.

The messages in the phone calls and mail pieces targeting voters in one of the Sacramento region's most competitive congressional races vary, but the subject is the same: the future of Medicare.

The national debate over the federal health care program for seniors is expected to be a top issue in elections across the country. The efforts already are fierce in the 7th Congressional District, a high-stakes rematch between Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, and Elk Grove Democrat Ami Bera.

The issue is fueling attacks and efforts to shore up support from outside groups looking to influence voters in the east Sacramento County swing district.

"Even if Dan Lungren and Ami Bera made a mutual pledge not to utter the word Medicare … it would still be a major issue in the campaign," said Dan Schnur, a former GOP strategist who serves as director of University of Southern California's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics.