Rather than using my own words ....Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig is exactly right about what's fundamentally wrong with American government.
Lawrence Lessig explains how money corrupts Congress | Harvard Magazine
an excerpt from his book:
Lawrence Lessig on How We Lost Our Democracy | Rolling Stone
a solid overview of his book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic,_Lost
Lessig is a liberal libertarian of sorts. He's the closest I've found to someone who I would really be excited about running for President - mostly because of this one issue - the exact problem with American government. The problem is a little complicated but essentially, the solution isn't. We first have to deemphasize the importance of financing campaigns, and you can only feasibly do this by having fewer elections. Longer terms, term limits.
Otherwise you're relying on the people to rise up together and demand congress police itself with bullshit legislation that will have built-in loopholes. If you literally have fewer elections, you have de-emphasized the need for constant campaign funding, you have de-emphasized the buying of votes. Short of being able to educate the American people to be more informed (LOL, Trump and Bernie this cycle, Kucinich and Ron Paul...before them Buchanan and Nader, the outsiders are always on the ideological fringe) then we have to tackle the problems we can actually fix, in some meaningful way.
Said another way, you lessen partisan gridlock when there is less reason for them to play politics with every single thing under the sun. They only do this because they are CONSTANTLY worried about elections. That money can essentially buy elections is a problem unto itself, but almost unfixable in any reasonable time-frame (decades upon decades). When you have low information voters...not just those that know the entire Kardashian family but couldn't tell you who Joe Biden was...but those that pay attention, become actively engaged and then become turned on to non-serious fringe ideas.