A candidate fielding questions in a bucolic Iowa setting, offering thoughtful responses to pressing policy issues. Retail politics: an Iowa staple like RAGBRAI and Maid-Rite sandwiches. And a refreshing antidote to D.C.'s insular nature.

Sadly, though, “retail politics” is taking on a more insidious form. Now, retail politics entails appeasement of coveted donors, strategic partnerships with super-PACs, and acquiescence of third-party groups spewing half-truths.

Boasting innocuous names like Americans for Prosperity or Patriot Majority, outside spending groups can unleash a barrage of misleading advertisements under the cloak of anonymity. But we finally have detected a sliver of bipartisanship. Republicans and Democrats both employ clandestine organizations to demonize their opponents. These shadowy groups conceal the millions spent bludgeoning an opponent under the guise of so-called “issue ads.”  

So you are shaking your head–at least I hope–and wondering why your politician is cavorting with these unsavory groups. The Supreme Court's Citizens United holding eviscerated the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, more popularly known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Citizens United ushered in the paradigm of unfettered corporate and union spending for direct advocacy. Our highest court has continued its assault on campaign finance regulations, culminating in the invalidation of state public matching fund programs. 

Under this new framework, shadowy third-party groups have prospered–no pun intended. Iowa's regulatory law is particularly amenable to these groups' proliferation. If an independent group avoids the “magic words” endorsing a candidate, it skirts the state's permissive disclosure requirements

My advice for federal candidates: support the Disclose Act without any special interest exemptions. Americans deserve transparency when evaluating candidates' positions. If the NRA or ACLU is funding surreptitious, third-party groups, we ought to know. But that step is a piecemeal one.

Why can't a federal candidate flout conventional wisdom and pledge to limit campaign spending to, say, one dollar per Iowa resident? Critics will immediately pounce, “Is he a masochist?” Well, not really. Limiting his spending to a dollar per voter, Sen. Russ Feingold defied conventional wisdom–and the Democratic Party–to prevail in a hotly contested re-election. Sen. Feingold–without the advent of social media mind you–relied on clever advertisements and, most importantly, embraced the retail in retail politics.

Checks and balances are pillars of our longstanding democracy. Let's hope that the ability to write the first doesn't eliminate the second.