They don't wanna ruin their dream of becoming insiders and having access to fancy people.

Although I do think campaign finance reform is important, I think fractional reserve banking is at the core of America's and the world's problem.

that was back when he was an Illinois state senator. He even mentioned it a time or two during the presidential campaign, as in "I favor single payer if we were starting from zero, but.... "

but nobody expects him to recall or honor those commitments nowadays. we're all big boyz and girls, no?

The ridiculous cost of political campaigns comes from the need to advertise on TV. Public financing without addressing that issue is simply a giveaway to the broadcast corporations. Actually, it's the second giveaway, since the original licensing was first. In the words of the resolution that my precinct/county/district conventions have passed every year for the past ten at least, we should require commercial broadcast corporations to allow candidates for public office the use of public airways free of charge, either through the issuance of “advertising credits” calculated by a formula based on corporation profits from the broadcast frequency, or by such other mechanism as established by Congress that eliminates the need to raise money for candidates to present themselves and their views to the electorate over the public airways.

Indeed, public financing of elections is a key that would unlock plenty of doors for progressives. But after 25 years of beating that drum in city council meetings, union halls, and anywhere else people might listen, I am not very optimistic. Although Versailles is naturally loath to go against their self-interest, the biggest obstacle is the American people themselves.

Americans are at best ambivalent about campaign financing. We indeed want fair and honest elections, but we also have a long-standing conviction in our society that one should be allowed to spend their money however they see fit. Our electoral process has long since been commodified; for many Americans, a wealthy man buying a politician is no different from buying a yacht or a summer home on Martha's Vineyard.

The objection I hear most often is that people don't feel that they should be forced to pay for elections. It's a Catch-22: people believe that government only benefits the rich, yet they don't want the responsibility of maintaining and participating in government, so government ends up even more captured by wealthy interests. To me, that's the most important issue right now; somehow, we must get through to the American people that it is time to take responsibility for our own governance. Pretending that America is run by space aliens and marching zombie-like to the voting machines on Election Day just won't cut it any more.

Isn't that what Obama put the last nail in?