The Federal Election Commission was created by Congress in 1975, one of the knee-jerk government reactions to the excesses of Nixon and the Watergate scandal.  Worried about the impact of money on the election process and the potential for "the rich" to "buy" elections, government infringement upon free speech in the political arena has been increasing ever since.  Despite the First Amendment, Congress has instituted limitations on what individuals, unions, and corporations can donate to political candidates and causes, and attempted to limit what a person could even spend on his own campaign.  With the so-called "campaign finance reform" implemented with the McCain-Feingold bill in 2001, even more strictures were levied on what could be said about whom by whom and when.  It's a mess, with fundamentally flawed underlying principles — that there's too much money (speech) in campaigns, and that government regulation will improve the situation.  Prior to the passage of McCain-Feingold, when the Constitutionality of the legislation was questioned, there were even Democratic legislators who suggested that if the speech restrictions were un-Constitutional, then we should consider amending the Constitution to give the government more authority to regulate political speech.

Cases of bribery and corruption, like those of Congressmen Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney, are pointed to as symptoms of a need for more government intrusion on political campaigns.  The problem is that access to political figures and money is not the root of the problem.  The root problem is the excessive impact that the government has on economic matters that makes it worthwhile for someone to bribe officials with large amounts of money.  Rep. Cunningham was being bribed to send millions in construction and military projects to favored groups; this is an obvious problem.  Less sinister, but no less insidious are the billions in pork barrel projects, special favors, and tax and other competitive advantages doled out by the government every year.  It is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to dairy farmers to have price supports continue, so it is worth it to them to band together and spend millions lobbying (or, in the sinister form, bribing) Congress; the increase in price of milk for an individual family doesn't justify such an effort on their part.  An increase in ethanol subsidies means more corn being grown, which means more pesticides and fertilizers; thus, a giant agricultural corporation has a huge incentive, along with manufacturers of pesticides and fertilizers, to lobby Congress to pass ethanol subsidies.  The family paying more for corn has no similar means or incentive to lobby against these subsidies, and perhaps is being told these subsidies are necessary to protect the environment (regardless of how dubious the claims may be, which is noteworthy in the case of corn-based ethanol, in part because of the increased pesticide and fertilizer use).

If the government had less of an economic impact on society, however, there would be less incentive for corporations to spend millions on lobbying and bribes.  The more powerful a person is, the more obviously a target he is for the currying of favor — who's going to bribe the janitor at a bank to get a big loan?  The first key to campaign "reform" then is to decrease the size, intrusiveness, and economic impact of government.  The obvious other benefit to such action is to decrease the cost of government (and thus its financial drain on our earnings via taxes) and to increase individual liberty, for every decision made by the government is a decision individuals and families aren't making for themselves.

The secondary issue is how to finance the elections themselves.  I believe that two principles should be involved:  minimizing the amount of intrusion by the government, and maximizing the information available to the voters.  To minimize the government intrusion, all financial restrictions on political donations by individuals should be removed.  If I want to spend every penny of my salary trying to get, say, Tila Tequila elected to Congress, it should be no more business of the government than if I want to spend it getting myself elected (although my name recognition is a good bit less than Tila's) or if I want to spend it on Playstation games, botox, or following U2 on tour.  It's my money, and in politics, money is speech.  The First Amendment was written first and foremost to protect political speech.

Once removing the government restrictions on individual donations to campaigns, let's provide people with the information they need to help guide their ballot decision.  Therefore, while campaign donations by individuals have no restriction, every donation to a campaign, regardless of how big or how small, must be disclosed within 24 hours.  I would suggest putting it on the internet, where bloggers, journalists, interest groups, or just interested individuals could plow through the information and decide if they think it is a problem that Candidate X is receiving $10,000,000 from, let's say, Michael Jackson.  Or perhaps we find that the owner of the largest corn producer is financing the campaign of Candidate Y, who just happens to favor ethanol subsidies — that would be a pretty important detail, one worth further inspection (note that in and of itself, that might not constitute any kind of corruption, as Candidate Y may have been sounding the call for ethanol subsidies long before ever getting the donation).  At any rate, people would have the information and could decide for themselves how to use it.

Decreasing the economic impact of government would reduce the incentive for corporations and unions to contribute to campaigns; this along with removing restrictions on individual donations would make the voices of individuals more powerful.  With immediate and full disclosure, voters would have information about where the candidates are getting their money.  Freer people with more information making decisions on our leaders sounds to me like the best possible system.