Was Thompson the "underfinanced" candidate?

The New York Times has done plenty of coverage on how Bloomberg spent exorbitant sums of money on the election. But in the their lead piece on the results of that race, they refer to Thompson as "vastly underfinanced."

Political types would certainly agree.

But that seems to me to be making a judgment about what the "right" amount of money to have is (some number which Thompson did not reach), and therefore implicitly endorsing our system of money-based elections. Yeah, they have to explain events within the context of how the current political system works, but at the same time they don't have to actively choose to perpetuate that system.