The problem isn't money, it's the fact that money has such strength in elections.
And that comes down to the electorate and the media. Public schooling doesn't result in adults capable of doing the homework necessary to figure out the issues or the candidates. The media does an incredibly shitty job of providing basic facts about candidates and issues. If you want to know the voting history of a candidate the media isn't going to tell you, for them it's a game, a horse race / popularity contest. They're just there for the story.
Add to that the fact that modern government has its fingers in every aspect of life and thus exerting any control over the government by whatever means is often an extreme necessity for many businesses and organizations, so there's a huge incentive to warp the political process. Folks of good intention need their lobbyists so that the government leaves them alone. Folks of bad intention want to twist the government for reward, either through subsidies, procurement programs, services, or regulations or other activity which preferentially hurts their competitors.
Both of these issues have become more and more important through the mid-20th century to today. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates the format was for one person to speak for a solid hour then the other to respond with an hour and a half speech and then the first person following up with another half hour response, and there were 4 such debates. Newspapers printed transcripts of those debates in full and Lincoln published a book based on them, which was were much of his fame came from initially. How different our system is today, and how utterly imbecilic and superficial it is by comparison. Meanwhile, within the last few decades the wealthiest counties in the US have become those counties around DC.
There's simply no way to squeeze money out of politics directly given the way it works now. There is too much incentive and insufficient countervailing forces to keep money out, no matter the laws, there will always be loopholes and through those loopholes the same corruption of the system will seep in. The problem needs to be fixed at its source. With better media and a more informed electorate as well as, in my opinion, a smaller government and saner laws and regulation.
And that comes down to the electorate and the media. Public schooling doesn't result in adults capable of doing the homework necessary to figure out the issues or the candidates. The media does an incredibly shitty job of providing basic facts about candidates and issues. If you want to know the voting history of a candidate the media isn't going to tell you, for them it's a game, a horse race / popularity contest. They're just there for the story.
Add to that the fact that modern government has its fingers in every aspect of life and thus exerting any control over the government by whatever means is often an extreme necessity for many businesses and organizations, so there's a huge incentive to warp the political process. Folks of good intention need their lobbyists so that the government leaves them alone. Folks of bad intention want to twist the government for reward, either through subsidies, procurement programs, services, or regulations or other activity which preferentially hurts their competitors.
Both of these issues have become more and more important through the mid-20th century to today. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates the format was for one person to speak for a solid hour then the other to respond with an hour and a half speech and then the first person following up with another half hour response, and there were 4 such debates. Newspapers printed transcripts of those debates in full and Lincoln published a book based on them, which was were much of his fame came from initially. How different our system is today, and how utterly imbecilic and superficial it is by comparison. Meanwhile, within the last few decades the wealthiest counties in the US have become those counties around DC.
There's simply no way to squeeze money out of politics directly given the way it works now. There is too much incentive and insufficient countervailing forces to keep money out, no matter the laws, there will always be loopholes and through those loopholes the same corruption of the system will seep in. The problem needs to be fixed at its source. With better media and a more informed electorate as well as, in my opinion, a smaller government and saner laws and regulation.