When will the public wake up to the pointlessness and waste in campaign finance? If the president can now strong-arm the Congress to pass a version of the original Simpson-Bowles plan, the election will have been a success

As East Coasters begin the process of recovering from the hurricane's historic destruction, another storm rages on. This storm threatens not our lives or our property, but American democracy itself. It's the storm of corruption, and the flood of unlimited corporate money into our political system.

Mitt Romney says that corporations are people. That is legalistic, self-serving nonsense. The consequences of this nonsense are many and overwhelmingly bad.

At the top of his game, gaining energy from the crowd, Bill Clinton, the "old country boy from Arkansas," tore it up last night in Charlotte. Political junkies, pundits of all stripes and Democratic activists were agog, watching the maestro at work.

Money is merely a symptom of the root problems of disconnect -- nearly all of the problems with our government can be traced back to the disconnect between citizens and the government.

If there is one thing we absolutely should not be doing, it's tinkering with our founding document to prevent groups like the ACLU (or even billionaires like Sheldon Adelson) from speaking freely about the central issues in our democracy.

I kid you not: sandwiched between provisions of the 2012 farm bill to provide assistance for peanut farmers and loans for moisture feed grain production, Sen. Tom Coburn is proposing an amendment to ban public financing of the presidential party nominating conventions.

Sure, we still have the right to vote. But the choices we are offered are usually determined by a political establishment mostly dominated by corporate money and a vast apparatus of election consultants, public relations hacks and lobbyists.

A tectonic collision is in store for the 2012 election, as unlimited campaign money enabled by Citizens United competes with super-charged online grassroots democracy.

Despite what you are hearing about Tea Party Populism and hopping mad Main Streeters, one thing is indisputable. The more money you make, the more likely you were to cast a ballot for Republicans in the 2010 elections.

A milestone in the intersection of money and politics was reached last month: more than $1 billion has been donated to candidates running for the Whit...