Where does the corruption begin?

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the corruption in our political structure.  I have come to the conclusion that we are looking at the branches  of the tree and not the roots.

When someone wants to run for office what do they do?  They start collecting campaign donations.  If you don't bend your morals to benefit large special interest groups/businesses, you might as well give up and not even run for office.  You won't have enough money to get heard.

No longer do we vote on the people with the best values, we now vote for the people who collected the most campaign donations.  "Donations" not "Values".  We are voting for the "money" and not the person.  

The Solution:

We need to stop politicians from collecting campaign donations, and create a "FAIR" campaign process.  We need to have "Electoral Reform".  No more attack ads on television and radio.  Every potential politician needs to have an "equal" amount of coverage in a "open" and "fair" forum.  Television and radio stations should cover these open forums and that is it.

We should use the Trillion Dollars they want to spend on health care, to fund a Town Hall environment for everyday Americans to run for office.  We need to change this cliche "It's not what you know, but "who" you know" and elect people based on what they know not who.

Until we accomplish this we will continue having politicians who push the agendas of their campaign contributors and not the agenda that is best for the American people.

ELECTORAL REFORM NOW!

When we enable every American to run based on their "true" principals, we will end up with honest hard working Americans in office who have our best interest in mind.

I know this sounds funny, but I am going to write my own quote.

"I have a dream that every American gets a fair and equal chance to run for office based on pure and simple values"
Jason - 11/7/2009