To my mind, someone has to approve the ad and take the heat for throwing mud, and a list of donors on a website somewhere doesn't quite cut it.

If you wanna fix campaign finance, there's a solution – a much better one, in fact. Draft a law that would allow ANYbody or any domestically-owned or controlled company to advertise, but put the monkey on the back of the candidate to report every dollar donated on line. In other words, let's see who's buying whom. If Chris Dodd gets over 80% of his campaign war chest from contributors outside his home state (true, by the way), let's see who they are. No exceptions. And furthermore, any group that gives money must provide a membership list as well. That way you won't have "People for the American Way" hiding behind a patriotic-sounding name…they'll have to disclose where THEIR money comes from, preventing some ass clown like George Sorros from buying elections. Simple, no?

To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to prohibit foreign influence in Federal elections, to prohibit government contractors from making expenditures with respect to such elections, and to establish additional disclosure requirements with respect to spending in such elections, and for other purposes.

OpenCongress summarizes:

This is the Democrats' response to the Supreme Courts' recent Citizens United v. FEC ruling. It seeks to increase transparency of corporate and special-interest money in national political campaigns. It would require organizations involved in political campaigning to disclose the identity of the large donors, and to reveal their identities in any political ads they fund. It would also bar foreign corporations, government contractors and TARP recipients from making political expenditures. Notably, the bill would exempt all long-standing, non-profit organizations with more than 500,000 members from having to disclose their donor lists.

The SCOTUS decision allows opponents to spend as much money as they can raise advertising against a given candidate. That would include producing attack docudramas and making sure they are broadcast in prime time just before elections. The Disclose act would have required that the major donors of the money be documented and disclosed (except for the loopholes).

The loophole was a legal flaw, but I don't see why we shouldn't know who really puts up the money for an attack ad or a film that either promotes or undermines a candidate. Disclose would only muzzle people, and corporations, that prefer to act behind the scenes. My donations can be found on any number of websites, so why shouldn't theirs?