fatal flaw?

What does it say about America - or democracy in general - that elections can be "bought"? What does that mean? More money spent on a campaign doesn't buy better policies, nor better arguments or presentations, nor better candidates. It simply buys exposure - most importantly on tv - which is inevitably shallow and most often based on manipulating fear and insecurity, making copious use of logical fallacy. Most paid campaign publicity is an insult to the intelligence of the citizenry…and yet it works!

I’d like to put forth a question: is there any way to avoid the sad conclusion that Jefferson and his peers were simply naïve?