Here's the election reform I'm in favor of:
First, go a step farther with the House of Representatives, and ban all private money at all.
Then repeal the (17th?) amendment, and let state legislatures appoint Senators, and keep the private money there, where it belongs. The Founders intended to immobilize/partially ammeliorate the nasty effect large money interests buying politicians wholesale on a national level.
They'd have to contend amoung the entire host of conflicting interests of local state legislators a state at a time.
There are a LOT more politicians in state legislators to buy off than there are media networks to buy off, and this allows them a concentration of power unforseen by the Founders or the Progressives of the 17th Amend.

The combination of the 17th Amendment and the popular vote for both the House and Senate with private money for both, makes whoever can afford the most media time the winner.

Perversely, this is a failure of both too much democracy (17th Amend.) combined with too little democracy (private money for Reps. w/no caps or level playing field for support of local interests) at the same time that makes an evil brew when combined with modern media, which weren't forseen at the time of the Progressive Movement which passwd the 17th. Amendment.

So, in the face of modern communications technology, the original power balance set up by the Founders turned out to be more automatically flexible, and had it been left alone a hundred years ago, all would be fairly well (without the pendulum swing concentration of power due to the 17th. Amendment combinded with media, we now require the additional correction of taking private money out of House elections.

I'm gonna post the above on my blog, and link to this discussion from there (I use QuickTopic too :-).