<As far as I can see, the only thing that can be done is to record and report, in a very public fashion, every last damn cent that is spent on political speech, and by whom. No more anonymous contributions. Every last donut must be reported. That way, since influence-pedalling can't be prevented without preventing some people from exercising political speech, at least we will all know who is trying to buy whom and for how much.

You might be interested to know that this excellent solution--scrap the limits but require total tracking of and public access to the source of every nickel--has been proposed by a number of people in articles and on talk radio. A major proponent of this concept is Rush Limbaugh. (I knew you'd love that one.)

Care would have to be taken to also require the funding sources to be as transparent as possible. A favorite trick is for a special interest group to create some organization with a public-spirited sounding name. A group favoring throwing trash in the ocean might create a group called "Mothers For Fewer Landfills" or something.