Forum Post: One Concise Demand - Prohibit Private Spending For Public Campaigns

There are a litany of demands on this forum, many of which I agree with (single payer health care, free higher ed, living wages ect.), but I think that the main, underlying issue at hand is that we live in the best democracy money can buy. Our democracy must be fixed on a fundamental level by taking the money out of politics. So here it is, the one demand that I think all Occupy Wall Street participants could get behind and could have wide sweeping ramifications that would likely lead to the passage of many of the demands being made.

1. Prohibit private spending for any public campaign.

But how will that work? a. Candidates would begin by gathering a certain amount of signatures, which would give them an initial allotment of air time and public campaign funds for them to introduce their platform and position. b. After a specified amount of time, a poll of the constituents would be taken to determine the the top x number of candidates. These top candidates would be given another allotment of air time, space in a public debate, and public campaign funds.
c. Based on the size of the election step b. could be repeated to narrow down the candidates again.
d. Once the top x number of candidates have reached the level of air time, debate and campaign funds that correspond to the constituent base for the office they are running for, the actual election would be held.

Essentially, this system would be a political tournament. Each polling victory would result in the candidate moving up.

PLEASE respond with criticism matched with suggestions for improving or elaborating on this idea.

DEMOCRACY + CAPITALISM = OLIGARCHY