I was with you until you claimed that the new phenomenon of spending billions on a campaign isn't corrupting. It seems obvious that the need to raise ever-increasing amounts of money is corrupting our system because we know that our representatives are spending roughly half their day fundraising and we can see the exponentially rising cost of campaigns.

So I can't agree with hand-waving this problem away. I like the ACLU's stance on it :

we recognize that the escalating cost of political campaigns may make it more difficult for some views to be heard, and that access to money often plays a significant role in determining who runs for office and who is elected.

In our view, the answer to that problem is to expand, not limit, the resources available for political advocacy. Thus, the ACLU supports a comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing that would help create a level playing field for every qualified candidate. We support carefully drawn disclosure rules. We support reasonable limits on campaign contributions and we support stricter enforcement of existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs.