The ad questions why Ross has fought against a government-run health care plan when a poll shows that 55% of people in his state support it. Ross, the ad notes, has taken $921,670 in campaign contributions from health insurers and the pharmaceutical industry since arriving in Congress.

Its important to understand that it isn't Congress that must change - it is us. I don't really believe in campaign finance reform - if you pass federal laws removing the money from one location it is just going to pop up somewhere else. People are under tremendous pressure from pundits, churches, activists, and true believers to tout a party line and wealthy people will always be able to get their messages out. It is easy to mislead the public when you have millions with which to do it.

I've always been a believer that the answer to bad speech is better speech. We need good, publicly funded, refereed voter guides that provide balanced information about the issues, and we need to promote a culture that advocates that people evaluate the information in these guides objectively and without regard to partisan bias.

I've written about this subject here.