It really scares me that $37k is the cost of something like that.
We're almost at the point of someone Kickstartering a politician, but not quite yet. Howard Dean came close to this.
Campaign donations poison the political pool by acting as a filter to remove candidate of strong conviction, in favour of those whose policy is easily bought for donations. With campaign budget being a factor in probability of election success [1], there needs to be a way for politicians to get funding without donors expecting an influence on policy so as to even the playing fields.
Could the masses fund politicians via something like kickstarter? I don't know enough about the laws, whether it would be viable, or even if it was, whether it would be enough to break the status quo. Regardless, it's definitely an interesting thought.