dawg, the reality is this. Electoral politics aint for leftists. It's never been for leftists, and unless money leaves the system and there are laws that are put in place to prevent this, it will never be. Politicians by their very nature are reactive.
So what you need to do is organize, pound the pavement and force change by bringing masses of people together. They only listen and care when that happens. You know thats true too when you have Obama telling people to stop being noisy adn you have the GOP passing laws to prevent people from organizing. That is how we have always gotten change in this country, by making elected officials lives uncomfortable that they have no other option.