I think that a candidate who was not afraid to make the "security state" a campaign issue, and the massive government encroachment in so many other aspects of our lives, and was able to explain the issues and his or her positions without sounding like he was regurgitating focus-group tested talking points, would do quite well in the current climate.

Or it may be that the average person still doesn't care. People who really don't care don't vote though, so all you really have to do is reach the people who are in any way paying attention.

So voting for a politician that takes advantage of a strategic opening by promising things he/she likely has no intention whatsoever of following through on is going to fix the police state? I mean, the administration's positions throughout this entire NSA scandal have been diametrically opposed to promises and assurances that Obama made while campaigning. Until you solve the problem of politician trustworthiness, then you have no hope of fixing systemic problems stemming from lack of trustworthiness among government officials. And make no mistake, you have to trust a politician that promises in his campaign to limit his own power.

Perhaps structural changes in the way politicians are elected and retain office would have some positive long term effects. I imagine if it was possible to hold a direct-vote referendum on the current sitting president mid-term would hold their feet to the fire at least a little bit. Also, prohibiting advertising by political campaigns (TV, print, all of it) coupled with state-sponsored, mandetory debates between presidential candidates might force a real debate about real issues.

And assuming we agreed that those changes would be beneficial to the political system, how might we go about achieving those reforms?

Well, that's the big question isn't it? Perhaps Larry Lessig will make end roads on the campaign finance issue, though I'm not holding my breath. The thing is that basically these sort of structural reforms will be difficult to institute without a broad movement that replaces scads of incumbents with independents unified on these issues. The current campaign finance rules heavily favor incumbents (aka current legislators), and so narrow, lukewarm political sentiment will yield nothing but lip service. I mean, it's hard to get incumbents to put that ladder back down after they've intentionally pulled it up behind them. It's a difficult problem, and I'm pessimistic on the prospect of it being solved when so few people seem to have the attention span to even see the problem. It's much easier to get outraged at narrow concrete issues than weightier abstract issues like campaign finance.

Not clear yet, if its a national issue each side can make their position known and back it up with planned reforms.

The one thing that is clear is that we shouldn't expect change under an Obama administration.

As I've said before, you won't see any review of this until after troops are fully withdrawn from Afghanistan, at which point a review of the AUMF and Patriot act become far more likely.

Are you really that naive as to expect change under the next democrat|republican administrations?

You've confused hope with naivety, where there is none.

Election time is the best time for reform, i.e. where the democratic process has the most influence.

Wasn't Obama the 'hope' candidate?

I agree that hope is better than despair but hope seems to be a bit of a tarnished word after the last 4+ years.

And this time around, let's hope we are a bit more curious about the "change" we are voting for.

Voting for a very small set of preselected candidates, endorsed by either wing of the elite party and mass media has zero chance of changing anything.

The primaries.