Combine a very-high necessary floor of funding for a wasteful Red Queen's Race opened up by Citizens United, and a bad system of elections that guarantees only

Combine a very-high necessary floor of funding for a wasteful Red Queen's Race opened up by Citizens United, and a bad system of elections that guarantees only two stably-viable parties, and you've got a system where money may not determine the winner, but it very much determines who even makes it on the ballot and the positions they are allowed to take on various issues, in a big way.