This essay will be a quick look at what I see as the leverage-mechanism that allows a small number of people to have outsized influence on "who will be our kings".
One proposal (not mine) to address the issue is presented at the end of the essay.
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It costs about $3.0 million to run a viable campaign for US House of Representatives. That is an average of $3.0 million for both sides. In "safe" districts, it will be substantially less. The losing side will establish a presence but aren't going to invest huge amounts on a sinking ship. The dominant party in the "safe" district doesn't need to spend $3.0 million to win.
Contested districts might see twice the average invested.
That money does not come from within the district. It come, mostly, through fund-raising mechanisms that are party specific. That means that if you, as a candidate, want money from WinRed or ActBlue you MUST dance to the tune they call. You must vote straight party lines and not what you perceive is the desire of your constituents nor what your conscience tells you to vote for.
It is just one more example of J.P. Morgan's Golden Rule, "The man with the gold makes the rules."
That leads to the capture of the party platforms/planks by the fanatical, one-issue voters: "I will eat nothing but BarS hotdogs, canned beans and instant rice for the next six months so I can send another $1000 to fund ProLife (or save the whales or advance LGBT rights or...) candidates.
The incredible price of the elections is primarily driven by the cost of media advertising. I suspect that many mainstream media outlets would go bankrupt without the huge influx of advertising dollars from political campaigns.
Viable solutions are tough to come by
One proposal that was offered by people interested in campaign reform is to have the media outlets NOT CHARGE for political advertising. Let's say they have to sacrifice the minutes-per-day that are purchased by the industry that currently buys the largest share of advertising...say Pharma...and they have to give the same number of minutes/day to political candidates in October and early November.
That proposal died before it was born. The media corporations puked all over it. Financially, legacy media is furiously dog-paddling to keep their financial nose above the water due to competition from the internet. Pulling revenue from political advertising would be the equivalent of thumping the dog in the head with an oar.
Another issue involved the constitutionality of not funding minor parties. Would you force every station to host every whacka-doodle party equally?
If you only fund the advertising for some minor parties then you create some very strange dynamics. Suppose you ran a "primary" election for the minor parties at the same time you ran the Big-Two primary and the top one or two minor parties gets free advertising.
Furthermore, let's pretend that the top-two minor parties in Eaton County are the Green-Eggs-and-Ham party and the Whackum-and-Stackum party.
If you gave free advertising to the Green-Eggs-and-Ham party then the Republicans will win because the GE&H party drained the fringe voters who would have normally voted for the Democratic candidate. Similarly, if you funded the W&S party, the Democrats will win because the traditional Republican base was split. That is the opposite of what should have happened if we expect the representatives to be a "representative sample" of their constituency.
You might say "fund both of them", but what if the top two minor parties are Green-Eggs-and-Ham and Juan-for-the-Money parties and both robbed voters from the Democratic party. That would result in the "wrong" major party winning.
Cap spending?
Maybe the answer is to cap spending the way major sports leagues cap payroll. It would force the parties to become much more focused on their messaging and potentially give locals much more leverage since most volunteers for door-to-door work are local.
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