[BLKNSLVR]

> To be a senator, you must run a 10-100 million dollar political campaign and make friends with every important person in your state.

Only because that's become the normalised way of 'winning', ironically where society generally loses because being 'friends with every important person in your state' generally means you pander to them in a way that costs everyone else.

Having had that rant, I don't know a better way, and your description is what US politics has (d)evolved to over time; water finding its own level.