Nothing gets my cynic juices flowing quite like hearing people call on the Internet to fix the political system.

Former Vice President Al Gore and online entrepreneur Sean Parker gave an overflow crowd at the South by Southwest trade show a pep talk Monday on the need to reform the political system, which Gore said is dominated by corporate interests. 

"Our democracy has been hacked. It no longer works, in the main, to serve the best interests of the people of this country," Gore said. "I would like to see a new movement called Occupy Democracy, where people who have Internet savvy remedy this situation."

If we expand Gore's group of deep-pocketed dominators to include unions (and in California, public employee unions in particular), then I think we can all agree that he has a point. The issue is whether Gore and Parker have a realistic solution. And their comments suggest that they don't recognize the role the Internet is already playing in the electoral polarization of the country, which is a major factor in the political system's inability to solve problems.

Here's how Gore described the current situation and its historical antecedents:

In the early days of the republic, the printing press was the most powerful means of communication, and just about anyone could use it to enter the public debate. Now, the essential fact of political life, at least on the national stage, is that costly television advertising plays a crucial role in winning elections. "Television creates a very different public square," he said. "It has gatekeepers. You can't get in to where you can address the mass audience."

As a consequence, politicians spend half their time in office groveling for money. Deep-pocketed corporations end up controlling the system because incumbents don't dare cross them for fear of losing their financial lifeline.

Again, that view conveniently overlooks the influence of powerful noncorporate interests -- for example, Planned Parenthood and the Service Employees International Union when Democrats are in power, and the National Rifle Assn. and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform when Republicans are in control. 

One of the dominant story lines of this political season has been the power of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's money -- how the millions of dollars spent by him and an allied "super PAC" have vaporized his rivals' leads in states such as Florida and Ohio. And as impressive as Romney's fundraising has been, his cash pile may be dwarfed by the billion-dollar war chest that President Obama is expected to amass for the general election.

NationBuilder, a tiny Los Angeles-based start-up, just raised a few million dollars of its own to support a different kind of politicking. For as little as $20 a month, the company offers a way to build a grass-roots organization at virtually no cost, opening the door to candidates who don't have personal fortunes or deep-pocketed friends. The idea is to combine publishing, communications, relationship-management and lead-generation tools into a cheap and easy-to-use package, harnessing the networking power of the Internet to pull candidates out of obscurity.

It's probably not the kind of service that could send any old Mr. Smith to Washington. Campaigns for Congress and the presidency are largely waged on television, while NationBuilder is better suited for the retail politics of a city council or school board race. Nevertheless, as money plays a growing role even in state and local politics, it's refreshing to see a company try to provide a tool that helps campaigns by encouraging donations of time and labor, not just cash.

Jim Gilliam, the company's founder and chief executive, came up with the idea after using the Web to build grass-roots support for Brave New Films, a company he co-founded that produces left-of-center documentaries. A network of friends online had also helped Gilliam, a cancer survivor, persuade surgeons at UCLA to perform the double lung transplant he needed after undergoing multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

These experiences made him wonder about how to create a service that would enable people to build an influential community of followers through the Web. The Internet is rife with tools to gather people with common interests (e.g., Facebook), publish content (WordPress, Twitter) and raise money for a project (KickStarter, Causes). There also are plenty of companies that offer to help candidates raise money, recruit volunteers and get supporters to the polls, typically for a monthly fee.

What was missing before NationBuilder, Gilliam says, was something that brought all those tools together, integrating systems for publishing, recruiting, fundraising and messaging into a system for community organizing.

Friday's Coffeebreak Quiz no doubt got you excited about Tuesday's Council District 15 runoff. The question: Which top deputy to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa donated to candidate and LAPD officer Joe Buscaino, and which contributed to candidate and state Assemblyman Warren Furutani?

The answer: Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Szabo gave to Buscaino, as reported to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. Deputy Mayor Larry Frank gave to Furutani, according to the same records.

Szabo was a spokesman for mayoral candidate Robert Hertzberg during the 2005 campaign that saw Villaraigosa elected. He later was a spokesman for then-Councilwoman Wendy Greuel (now city controller and a candidate for mayor) before joining Villaraigosa's officer as a deputy mayor for communications in 2006. He is now one of Villaraigosa's top aides, dealing with budget and communications matters.

Frank, an attorney, labor activist and community organizer, has been with the Villaraigosa administration from the beginning. His portfolio includes neighborhood councils.

Photos: Joe Buscaino, left, and Warren Furutani. Credit: Robert Greene / Los Angeles Times

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--Robert Greene

We're just days away from the Jan. 17 City Council runoff in District 15. We've written in this space before about who's funding the candidates: Lots of San Pedro residents and businesses are giving to LAPD officer Joe Buscaino; lots of elected officials' campaign committees and Asian American donors across the nation are giving to state Assemblyman Warren Furutani. Independent expenditures loom large as well.

But what about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office? Villaraigosa has endorsed Furutani, but the race has split donations from his top deputies.

So Friday's Coffeebreak Quiz question: Which top Villaraigosa deputy has opened his wallet to Buscaino, and which to Furutani?

Campaign contribution records are public and available for review on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission website.

The correct answer will be posted here on Monday, Jan. 16, at 11:07 a.m. 

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--Robert Greene

Photos: Joe Buscaino, left, and Warren Furutani. Credit: Robert Greene / Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Police Protective League put big bucks behind Joe Buscaino in the Nov. 8 City Council primary, but in the runoff it's got company: The union leaders of rank-and-file Department of Water and Power employees are behind an organization that has spent $44,987 on mailers and polling to elect Buscaino, according to numbers filed with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. The grass-roots candidate, the neighborhood cop, is now the DWP union's guy.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

By rights, though, Joe should be completely unable to say whether it's so. A donor to a City Council candidate may give only $500 per election, but the league and DWP union payments all come in the form of independent expenditures. There is no limit on IEs, as they are known, as long as the spending isn't coordinated with the candidate's campaign.

That means the candidate and his representatives are not supposed to be able to incorporate the IE into their own fundraising and spending decision-making. For example, the candidate is not allowed to contact the independent group and say, "You know, I've got the door-to-door thing nailed down, but I don't want to spend unnecessary time on the phone raising money for mailers. So it would really help me out if you guys took care of the mail campaign for me." That's coordination. It nullifies the "independent" part of the independent expenditure. Except for the first $500 worth, it would be illegal.

So how do observers tell if there is coordination? Let's be honest: They don't. There's no way to know whether a union guy working on an IE says, over a beer with a guy from the candidate's campaign, "If I were you, I'd spend money on cable ads because just between you and me, you can assume that the mail will be taken care of." There is no public record of the Ethics Commission charging a candidate, committee or independent expenditure group with improperly coordinating.

The arrangement keeps individual campaign donation limits in place, so that supposedly no single contributor can buy a candidate; but it still allows wealthy groups and individuals to exercise their 1st Amendment rights to speak out, with money, in support of the candidate they like. Then, if they later demand favors in return for their largesse, an elected official would in theory still be able to say, "I never knew you."

But that doesn't really mean the independent group gets nothing for its money but the satisfaction of electing a good person.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18 -– the DWP union -– no doubt saw the Police Protective League's independent expenditure in the first round. IBEW leaders got into the game with the Local 18 Water and Power Defense League Committee, which in turn is providing the bulk of funding to Working Californians to Support Buscaino for City Council 2012. Working Californians also includes funding from United Firefighters of Los Angeles City.

The DWP union leaders and the firefighters union went to bat for the firefighters' former president, Pat McOsker, in the primary. He came in fourth.

DWP workers may have worried that if elected, Buscaino would reserve all his council clout to satisfy the league's demands for better police pay at budget and union contract time, leaving little left for DWP raises. With the IE, the electrical workers and firefighters could say (without actually saying it), "Hey, Joe. Remember that you're up for reelection in only 18 months. Remember what we did for you, and think about what we could do for you again. Or what we could instead do for an opponent, if you don't see the world our way."

Of course, the cops' union (and a business group that's spent $16,098.34 on phone-banking, a mailer and a print ad to elect Buscaino) might be saying the same kind of thing. For the runoff, the league has put in another $89,118 -– for cable ads and a mailer -– to help elect Buscaino. That's on top of the $72,285 the league spent during the primary to get Buscaino into the final round. One private person's measly $500 contribution counts for little when measured against that kind of clout, unless the successful candidate has some integrity and backbone.

The Times' editorial page is counting on that integrity and backbone in Buscaino. We endorsed him over state Assemblyman Warren Furutani. And we meant it. And all we offered him is the same thing we offer everyone else who comes to see us -– a glass of water or a cup of coffee, and half an hour to an hour of our undivided attention. And maybe a cookie.

Although apparently we're doing more. We didn't intend to, but it goes with the endorsement territory: Working Californians (that's the electricians' and firefighters' union committee) printed portions of our endorsement in its latest mailer, even though in backing Buscaino we were straightforward about our reservations. See it here. Talk about uncoordinated; we didn't know about this until we saw it Tuesday on the Ethics Commission's website.

The business group backing Buscaino is BizFed PAC, A Project of Los Angeles County Business Federation; it is funded by chambers of commerce.

The numbers are still rolling in. The filing deadline for the period beginning Dec. 3 is Thursday.

Furutani's campaign got $6,202 in independent support in the primary from a group called Golden State Leadership Fund, which sent out four mailers referencing themes of special interest to Asian Americans, including the World War II-era forced internment of Japanese Americans. See one of the mailers here. Another mailer reads, "There is no one on the L.A. City Council who looks like us."

Although Golden State is independent, its strategy of targeting Asian American voters is very much in line with the Furutani campaign's approach, as discussed in this earlier post.

An independent group called the Korean American Democratic Committee also produced communications to elect Furutani but has not yet reported how much it spent.

Furutani has been backed by independent expenditures from the Los Angeles County Democratic Party: $4,704 for the primary and $10,000 so far for the runoff. The party has also spent $31,917 to communicate with its members in support of Furutani. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has spent $24,540 to urge its members to support Furutani.

To see all the spending reports and to view all the mailers, go here and click on the dollar amounts.

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Who's donating to Buscaino, Furutani?

The Capitol contingent

Buscaino and the council cop bloc

--Robert Greene

Photos: Three bastions, three labor contracts, three ways to say "thank you": the Department of Water and Power, City Hall and LAPD headquarters. Credit: Robert Greene / Los Angeles Times

First question: how do you feel about lobbyists?

[You can think expletives but not write them.]

Now, second question. How about doubling the fees California lobbyists have to pay to register as lobbyists?

[Okay, okay, not so loud.]

So, all in favor of Senator Leland Yee’s bill that would double those fees …

[Wild cheering erupts.]

Congratulations, Californians. If you were casting the votes, lobbyists would now have to pay 14 cents a day. Fourteen cents.

It’ll be up to the Legislature to double the fees from seven cents to 14. And there’s no guarantee that the measure, set to be introduced next year, will pass.

The San Jose Mercury News says California is laggardly in its lobbying fees. States like Alaska and Alabama charge $100 a year, Illinois lobbyists pay $300 and in Massachusetts it’s $1,000.

In California, until just last year, it was costing lobbying groups less than a nickel a day in fees to the state of California -- $12.50 a year. A buck and a few cents a month. They probably drop that much in pennies on the Capitol Park sidewalk over a year’s time.

Then, through the Secretary of State’s office, the fee "doubled" –- a useful word in the language of politics, which is to say, it went up [for the first time since the Watergate year 1974] to a staggering $25 a year.

This isn’t symbolic chump change; it’s real chump change. The money would support Cal-Access, a website that allows anyone to "follow the money" with a mouse click, tracking the dough that comes into politics and where it goes.

The website, officially called the California Automated Lobbying and Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Search System, was constructed in the techno-Dark Ages of 1999, and it can hardly be described as state of the art.

Now it has been on the fritz since around Thanksgiving, making it harder to track those figurative greenbacks.

The bill by Yee, a Bay Area Democrat, would put the money raised by the new ‘’doubled’’ fees, all $50,000 of it, toward getting Cal-Access up and running again. It's something, but it's a disgrace that this public service site isn't already funded in the public interest.

What are the odds of this passing -- this, or an even more solid way of funding Cal-Access? Would lobbyists really have the brass ones to reinforce their already unsavory image by defeating a bill over $25 a year?

 Maybe … but I suspect there may be a few elected officials sitting in the red-ink-crimson state Senate and in the House-of-Commons-green state Assembly chambers who secretly wouldn’t be altogether unhappy if the public had that much harder a time finding out where all that campaign money is coming from, and where it’s going…

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 -- Patt Morrison

Photo: Leland Yee. Credit: Ben Margot / AP Photo

Humorist Stephen Colbert is from South Carolina, the secesh capital of the Civil War, the home of Fort Sumter, and he’s firing his own first shot:

He’s angling to get his name on a PAC, and not just any PAC. Colbert has offered his home state a swap:

Appealing to GOP frugalistas, he’s offered to help pick up the tab for the state's presidential primary Jan. 21, according to The State newspaper. In exchange, he wants the state GOP to let him exercise a naming-right option and rename the primary “The Colbert Nation Super PAC Presidential Primary," in the fine tradition of, say, Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, a ballpark formerly [for obvious reasons] known as Enron Field.

The host of "The Colbert Report" also wants a referendum on the ballot asking voters whether or not they agree that "corporations are people," the other bumper-sticker takeaway from Citizens United, echoed eloquently in Mitt Romney’s comeback to a heckler at the Iowa State Fair that "corporations are people, my friend."

Colbert already presides over his own super PAC, a deadpan sendup of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which popped the cork on how much corporate money can flow into federal elections. Colbert’s reasoning seems to be that if money can effectively "buy" politicians, why can’t it purchase the political process itself, outright? Or at least purchase sponsorships.

The Times reported that the GOP denies there was ever a deal, but The State newspaper in South Carolina says the GOP has agreed to put the referendum on the ballot in exchange for Colbert’s "significant contribution," which would pretty much let Colbert claim to have proven his point.

No matter how this turns out, the on-the-air/on-demand/online world has created a whole new playing field for playing politics.

No longer must political pranks and dirty tricks be confined to the sophomoric ordering of dozens of pizzas to be delivered to political opponents, COD, courtesy of Nixon operative Donald Segretti, who also sent a deeply sinister fake letter to the editor of a New Hampshire newspaper impugning Democratic candidate Ed Muskie, or to Karl Rove’s  stealing of a thousand sheets of an opponent’s campaign letterhead to send out a flyer inviting the homeless to a campaign rally with "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing." It was, he later said, a "youthful prank" that he regretted. 

Now there’s Internet squatting, too.

Someone in the Newt Gingrich camp didn’t cover all the bases before he launched his presidential campaign. The domain name "newtgingrich.com" takes you not to the former Speaker’s own website, or his campaign’s, but to a variety of sites and stories that don’t have much flattering to say about Gingrich.

I clicked on it several times. Once, a story appeared about a Gingrich business advisory group bestowing an "entrepreneur of the year" award -- on a Van Nuys online porn company. After publicity prompted the business group to rescind the award, the porn company ginned up its own "Family Values Porn Fan of the Year" award for Gingrich. On another click, I got the site for Freddie Mac, a firm that paid Gingrich handsomely for consulting work that he insists was not lobbying.

USA Today said its check of "newtgingrich.com" led to the Tiffany and Co. website, a broad hint about Gingrich’s onetime $500,000 tab at the luxe shop.

The site is evidently owned by a Democratic opposition research group called American Bridge 21st Century. It was reported to be selling the site on Craigslist for $1 million, "because we wouldn’t want to be accused of being socialists" by giving it away. But when I clicked for the link [and whether there were any offers], I only got this:

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/for/2763960270.html

This isn’t the first time for political web-squatting. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee got the rights to www.jackabramoff.com, the name of the notorious Republican lobbyist who just got out of prison and asked the DCCC for the domain name back. Hit the road, Jack, the DCCC responded. [In case you’re wondering, I’ll save you the mouse click: dccc.org is owned and operated by … the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.]

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-- Patt Morrison

Photo: Stephen Colbert attends IAVA's Fifth Annual Heroes Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on November 9, in New York City. Credit: Fernando Leon/Getty Images

City Council districts change every 10 years as lines are redrawn to reflect demographic shifts recorded in the decennial census. This decade's current redistricting effort is now underway. But except for gaining or losing a few blocks at the far northern end, where Watts joins South Los Angeles and the central city, Council District 15 doesn't change. It can't, and it won't, because it has nowhere else to go. It's fenced in by the harbor on the south and the very strange shape of the city boundaries from there northward. Unless more territory is annexed to or detached from Los Angeles, this district will look pretty much the same in 50 years as it does today.

Take a look at these maps of the City Council districts today, in the 1990s, the 1980s and the 1970s (maps courtesy of the city's excellent Bureau of Engineering online map gallery). Not much change, save for some gradual addition in territory linking Watts to Harbor Gateway.

Politically, too, it's a somewhat odd district. San Pedro may be in some respects the city's most conservative enclave after the far northwest San Fernando Valley. But it's a conservatism built on and tempered by a strong union presence in the port, and when joined with more liberal voters in Watts and Wilmington, this district is one of the few in the city that is just as likely to choose a liberal Democrat, a conservative Democrat or a Republican.

Janice Hahn, a Democrat who left the office earlier this year after her election to Congress, was one of the council's most liberal members. She was elected in 2001 in the same election that made her brother, Jim Hahn (also a liberal Democrat), mayor. Janice Hahn succeeded Rudy Svorinich, a Republican; Svorinich in turn defeated Republican Joan Milke Flores in 1993 in the post-riot election that saw voters elect Mayor Richard Riordan, Los Angeles' first GOP mayor in decades.

Flores had been secretary, planner and then chief of staff to City Council President John S. Gibson Jr. before succeeding him on the council in 1981. Gibson, a Democrat, represented the 15th District for 30 years, from the 1950s into the 1980s. In the early part of his term he was deemed one of the council's few liberals. The city's politics changed over the decades, but his didn't, and Gibson left the council as one of its more conservative members.

Both candidates vying for the post in the Jan. 17 runoff -- LAPD officer Joe Buscaino and Assemblyman Warren Furutani -- are Democrats. Furutani has the support of much of the Democratic Party establishment, including the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and elected Democrats such as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, City Council members Bernard C. Parks and Paul Koretz, and a bevy of lawmakers in Congress and the Legislature. He also has labor backing from the politically influential UNITE HERE Local 11, representing hotel and restaurant workers. On Thursday, he won support from the city's largest civilian public employee union, SEIU Local 721. The union, a major player in City Hall, backed firefighter and union activist Pat McOsker in the Nov. 8 nominating election.

Buscaino is backed by his own union -- the Los Angeles Police Protective League -- and decline-to-state-party City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and Councilman Dennis Zine. Add support from Democratic council members Tom Labonge and Jose Huizar, and the Los Angeles County Young Democrats.

The candidates split endorsements from construction and building and trade unions and teacher unions; United Teachers Los Angeles is going with Buscaino, which is interesting given that Furutani is a former school board member. But all in all, does Buscaino's backing represent a slightly more conservative shade of Democrat than Furutani's? Yes. And no. But perhaps we can say Furutani's people are more the entrenched political establishment and Buscaino's are more the insurgents, or at least the outsiders? Kind of, sort of. It's the 15th District. It's complicated.

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--Robert Greene

In Las Vegas, it's called "the smart money";  it’s bet by "the wise guys."

You want to argue about who's better, Packers or Steelers?  Go ahead. The wise guys don't care; the smart money goes on the best bets.

So what does this have to do with the Republican presidential race?

Herman Cain is the conservative darling of the moment, with growing grass-roots support. He's outpacing Mitt Romney in some polls; his rise in those polls has been in stark contrast to Rick Perry's fall.

So why is it that campaign contribution filings  over the weekend showed $14 million for Romney, $17 million for Perry -- and $2.8 million for Cain?

True, Cain's campaign said he raised another $2 million in the two weeks after the filing period. But that still puts him well behind Romney and Perry.

Heck, it even puts him behind Ron Paul, who raised $8.2 million; and speaking of grass-roots support, nearly half of Paul's money came in amounts of $200 or less.

Which means the smart money remains on Romney and Perry.

Sure, grass-roots support matters.  But money matters more.  Rich people didn't get rich making bad bets with their money.

And there was an interesting sidelight to the campaign contribution story. Fiscal conservative Michele Bachmann, who on the stump makes much of her vote against raising the debt ceiling, took in $4.1 million in contributions.  And how much did she spend?  About $6 million.

Apparently, deficit spending is no way to run a government, but it's a fine way to run a campaign.

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Photo: Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney greets supporters after speaking about his jobs plan in September at McCandless International Trucks Inc. in North Las Vegas, Nev. Credit: Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Really, it's news that only political junkies pay attention to.  But it's still staggering.

The Times reported Wednesday that "Rep. Ron Paul raised more than $8 million for his presidential campaign in the last three months" from 100,000 individual donors.

And that's not all.  "Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he raised more than $17 million from 22,000 donors."

Wait, there's more.  Though he didn't announce a total, "a source close to the Mitt Romney campaign said the former Massachusetts governor's third-quarter fundraising take was expected to be more than $14 million."

And let's be bipartisan here.  Though President Obama's fundraising total  in the quarter is reportedly lagging,  he's still expected to rake in $55 million, compared with an $86-million haul in the previous quarter.

Think that's it? Nope: 

A senior advisor to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is leaving his federal post to open a "super PAC" that can raise unlimited amounts from individuals and corporations to back conservative Republican candidates and causes.

The move by John Murray, who served as Cantor's deputy chief of staff, is another indication that congressional leaders are looking to raise funds through super PACs, new, technically independent political organizations that were spawned as a result of a controversial Supreme Court decision in 2010.

Wow.  To paraphrase the quote often attributed to the late Sen. Everett Dirksen, "A million here, a million there, pretty soon, you're talking real money."

Sure, the nation’s economy is ailing. But in corporate America today, you can be sure of this: There may not be money for new workers,  there may not even be money to keep workers,  but there is always money for two things:  bonuses for executives and funding for political candidates and causes. 

And why is there plenty of political money?  What, you think it's a coincidence you're eating poison cantaloupe? Or that Wall Street got bailed out but your line of credit got canceled?  Or that a company wants to build a pipeline through a precious aquifer?  

Paul put a positive spin on his fundraising:

"If you get $8 million … and you get it from small individual donors who are fervently engaged in campaigning for you, that’s a lot different than getting money that more than likely might have come, for the other candidates, from special interests," Paul said at a luncheon at the National Press Club. "All donors are not equal. I will take my small donations, with the enthusiasm of the people who send me the money."

Sure, that's one way to look at it.  You could argue that Paul got about $80 each from 100,000 people.  And that Perry got about $775 each from 22,000 people.

And the Tooth Fairy brings me $1 every time I lose a molar.

Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight with Paul's supporters. They are fervent; they believe he's leading a revolution.  It's very American.  

But in American politics today, money talks.  And big money talks the loudest.

Paul's supporters may be digging into their pockets for loose change to fund someone they believe in.

But I don't think those pockets will be nearly deep enough to offset the ones in those nicely tailored suits in the corporate suites.

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Photo: Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul speaks at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington. Credit: Patrick Smith / Getty Images