I'm going to step out on a limb here and say something brash: You can roll your own Campaign Finance Reform. That's right. You have the power to render the money in politics irrelevant.Why is money spent on campaigns? To buy marketing. That marketing is either pro-candidate or anti-candidate, and usually the latter. What trumps negative marketing, every day of the week? Personal experience. They can buy ad after ad that tells me you're an ass, but if that flies in the face of everything I know about you personally, then it's dollars wasted. The old hands in politics believe that you're lazy. They believe that you won't get involved. They believe that they you're just a sheep to be led around and pushed around by their marketing. This is why every campaign has financial targets, but not organizational targets. Here is what those influence peddlers fear most: an engaged and informed electorate. Why? Because it will render their money useless. The reason that every politician - Democrat and Republican - is afraid of the tea party movement is because my personal activist influence will trump their moneyed influence. My personal involvement deflates the value of their campaign war chest. Neither the politician nor the rich guys nor the media want that to happen. Hence the name-calling and the poo-poo'ing of the tea party folks, from both sides of the street. They fear most that they can't use money to sway you. If you want to make money irrelevant in politics, the only way is to get actively involved in supporting the candidate of your personal choice. That's how you make sure that the right person is elected and how you show them that money will not buy the election. | 
