After five months of bickering, all the players involved in the battle over who really won Minnesota's Senate race last year are ready for the contest to end.

Or are they?

The cost of the recount fight between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken has hit $12 million, money that's going not just to lawyers but to an ever-larger cast of political advertisers, pollsters, party committees and professional fundraisers. That's above and beyond the $21 million or so that each candidate spent on the election itself.

A March FEC opinion cleared the way for Coleman and Franken to raise money beyond the normal limits.

The cottage industry that's sprung up around the protracted Coleman-Franken contest worries some experts, who point to lax regulation of recount committees. The legal battle's escalating cost could also impact Coleman's willingness to soldier on; he's struggled to raise money at the same clip as Franken.

Coleman is expected to file an appeal shortly to the state Supreme Court, seeking to overturn a three-judge panel's ruling that Franken is entitled to a certificate of election. The panel concluded on April 13 that Franken received 312 more votes than Coleman. But Coleman maintains that 4,400 absentee ballots were improperly excluded from the tally.

An unpleasant wrinkle for Coleman is that the judges also ordered him to pay some of Franken's legal expenses. Coleman, who has revived the equal protection argument cited in Bush v. Gore, has not ruled out an appeal to the Supreme Court.

But the escalating cost of his post-election operation could come into play. In a recent analysis for his blog FiveThirtyEight, ace political numbers-cruncher Nate Silver estimated that the legal battle's continuing cost to Coleman, whose payroll includes a team of five lawyers, probably totals about $20,740 per day, or $145,181 per week.

"The financial exposure he now has, not only to his expenses but potentially to Franken's, combined with the money he's going to have to raise, is certainly going to be a consideration as he continues to weigh his fight in the courts," said Lawrence Jacobs, who directs the Center for the Study of Politics and Government at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. "He could be potentially bankrupting himself."

Jacobs warned that the multimillion-dollar recount committees underwriting the Minnesota contest threaten to poke holes in the campaign finance regime. A March Federal Election Commission advisory opinion cleared the way for Coleman and Franken to raise money jointly with their respective political party committees, in amounts beyond the normal limits.

Individual donors may give the recount committees up to $30,400 a year, even when they have contributed the legal maximum to parties and candidates, the FEC ruled. The FEC also considered allowing those committees to collect unregulated (soft) money, raising alarm bells among campaign finance watchdogs, but that idea died due to a commission deadlock. A variety of local and national party committees are helping underwrite the legal battle, noted Jacobs, making the money hard to track.

"This area of disputed elections is a whole new universe that is largely unregulated, unwatched and potentially perilous for the legitimacy of our electoral process," he said.

Since Election Day, Franken has collected about $7 million for post-election expenses, said spokeswoman Jess McIntosh -- money raised by his Senate campaign committee, his recount committee, and by the state's Democratic Farm Labor party. Coleman reportedly raised about $5 million between Election Day and mid-February.

FEC reports show contributions to Coleman's Minnesota Recount Committee from CEOs, investors, casino executives and other major donors in Minnesota and around the country. These include $10,000 apiece from Sheldon G. Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands casino, and Target CEO Gregg W. Steinhafel, as well as $12,300 from Kendall J. Powell, chief executive officer of General Mills.

Many of Coleman's GOP colleagues have also jumped in to help him. Several have donated money from their leadership PACs, including Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who kicked in $10,000 from his 21st Century Majority Fund, and Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., who gave $5,000 from his KITPAC.

For his part, former comedian Franken has pulled in hefty contributions from his Hollywood friends and associates. His Recount Fund boasts $12,300 apiece from actors Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks; $10,000 from NewsWeb Corp. founder Fred Eychaner; and another $12,300 from Act III Communications chairman Norman Lear. Democrats have also donated to Franken from their leadership PACs, reflecting the race's importance to the closely-divided Senate's balance of power.

And the money keeps rolling in. The political party committees backing both Senate and House candidates have not been shy about exploiting the strong emotions around the race in their fundraising appeals. The DNC has run ads in Minnesota and paid for a poll that purports to show dwindling public support for Coleman. The prospect of a battle over whether Minnesota officials should seat Franken, in the event that the legal battle drags on, will fuel fundraising still further.

"This is a race that has really angered both Democrats and Republicans," noted Jacobs. "And that's a perfect recipe for fundraising."