Creepy as this may seem, Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategist, is entering our living rooms on a nightly basis, gaining entry with the aid of his new campaign organization, American Crossroads.

Based in Washington, D.C., and run by veteran Republican operatives, American Crossroads has been grabbing attention across the nation, taking millions in donations from billionaires, and spending it to help Republicans take back the U.S. Senate and House.

Lately, American Crossroads has turned its bilious attention to Sacramento's one hot congressional race, the one between Republican incumbent Dan Lungren and Democratic challenger Ami Bera, a physician who used to oversee admissions at UC Davis medical school before getting the screwy idea to enter politics.

If you've been watching television, you've seen Rove's handiwork in the form of a commercial with hideous photos of President Barack Obama, juxtaposed against a sinister-looking Bera, while the narrator warns that Bera has evil designs on health care.

Bera is one of the few challengers in the nation who has a chance to unseat a sitting Republican. That's where American Crossroads comes in. It's spending $682,000 to muddy up Bera, more than it has spent on any other House race in the country.

Stung by Republican-proxy groups during this campaign, Democrats, including Bera, and advocates of campaign finance regulation are calling for new restrictions on and greater disclosure for independent campaign committees.

Any such effort would have to go through Lungren, assuming he wins re-election. Lungren is the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee, placing him in line to become chairman if the GOP takes control of the House on Nov. 2, as many pundits predict. The House Administration Committee has jurisdiction over campaign finance legislation.

Lungren spoke to me about his vision for campaign finance law. He offers a free market and deregulated approach to campaign money, with a few twists. It's a vision that advocates of campaign finance reform would oppose.

As Lungren's sees it, the main problem with the system is that there are caps on direct donations to candidates. An individual cannot give more than $2,400 per election to a congressional candidate. Lungren would obliterate limits, permitting donations of unlimited size directly to candidates and political parties. That, he says, would limit the role of independent groups.

Perhaps, but people who run such groups have power over election outcomes and might not want to give that up.

"You're going to have money flowing, and I would rather have the money flowing to the candidates," Lungren said. "You'd still have a lot of money, but (donors) would be identified with the party and with the candidate."

Lungren would impose some restrictions. He'd ban large donations of, say, $50,000 within a week of an election and require rapid public disclosure of donations to candidates, though not to some independent committees.

Disclosure would be good. But reformers shudder at much of the rest.

"The idea of lifting contribution restrictions is a formula for corruption and legalized bribery," said Fred Wertheimer, perhaps the leading voice for campaign finance restrictions in Washington.

Wertheimer, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Democracy 21, predicted "major battles for reform" in 2011, just as there were this year when Democrats pushed for more disclosure in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting corporations to contribute to independent committees like American Crossroads.

That decision left in place the century-old ban on corporations giving directly to candidates. Lungren, who joined other Republicans who voted against this year's bill, said he likely would not vote to lift that prohibition.

His focus would be disclosure for a federal system that is opaque. Donors are identified in unwieldy monthly or quarterly filings. Some donors who give in October may not be known until after the election. Some will never be known.

In addition to American Crossroads, Rove helped create a related entity called Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies. It too has spent heavily on campaign ads, including one attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer. Unlike its cousin, American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS is a nonprofit corporation that is under no obligation to disclose its donors.

Lungren stops short of calling on these sorts of corporations to identify their donors, citing a 1958 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the NAACP to refuse to turn its donors over to Alabama state authorities. Lungren says donors to such groups ought to be able to maintain anonymity because "governments can intimidate individuals."

Equating billionaire donors with civil rights workers in the 1950s is slick at best, and insulting to the memories of individuals who risked and lost their lives in pursuit of civil rights.

Fear of government intimidation doesn't drive billionaire donors to seek anonymity. It's all about money. If their politics become known, they would risk alienating part of the consuming public.

Under the law, donors have a First Amendment right to spend as much as they please on campaigns, although Congress can establish some rules for how that money gets spent.

If he wins re-election on Nov. 2, Lungren will be in the middle of the debate over how that money flows. Groups like American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS will continue to raise and spend millions and enter our living rooms. But we ought to know who funds them.

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