1: Impose term limits on all politicians, to ensure that we don't get career politicians. Maybe 6 or 8 years or so. Enough time to learn the job but not enough time to become beholden to it.

2: True campaign finance reform:

a) Limits (that are actually adhered to) on all campaign donations - private and corporate. No PACS, spousal co-donors and other loopholes. You can only raise "$X" from "Y # of people" - and that's it.

b) Completely equal - and 100% free - air time to all candidates. No ability to buy more ads or editorial time beyond what the FCC - which is supposed to control the "public airwaves" and not allow them to be sold to the highest bidder - grants to ALL legitimate candidates.

3: Generally less centralized government.

a) Allow the individual States to govern themselves without completely B.S. central control over things like Federal highway and school funding, inter-State commerce, etc.

b) More public influence and involvement in more local, day-to-day politics.

c) (Possibly) breaking up the United States into smaller units. Our current system was put in place when the country was a mere fraction of the size it is now. The United States is a huge nation now, with extremely disparate segments. Wildy varying geographic, cultural, economic, meterological, etc., etc., segments all supposed to get along and engage in mutual government. It's almost (?) impossible to make this many different people with such different experiences and lifestyles and beliefs agree on anything, much less something as fundamental as the direction of the Country.

Those are some ideas ( that will NEVER come to fruition, BTW) but, I don't claim to know what the solution is.

Not by a long shot.

as far as term limits go, that is controlled by the voters. A bad politician is bad no matter how many years he or she holds office. Intelligent voters are the best controllers of term limits.

Zrocs, the problem is that after many years in the public eye, name recognition gets in the way of a thoughtful and objective voting process. And after some time it becomes an institution... e.g., Kennedy, Byrd, Thurmond... An 8-year term should be it.

Term limits: to me that's not the issue. What we really need is campaign finance reform, in fact we need to put severe limits on the amount of money that can be spent on a campaign. The need for campaign money to get re-elected is an incredible corrupting influence. I say no political advertising on public airwaves should be allowed.

How about each candidate has equal time on PBS stations. No commercial or cable station allowed to carry any political advertising (even from PACs). Combine this with a 2 month campaign limit and true reform is at hand.

Do most of you have great coverage at a reasonable price?
Am I missing something here?