Europe is big on publicly funded elections too. The purpose of publicly funded elections is to lower the barrier to entry. If you have amazing ideas you shouldn't be stopped from changing the world with those ideas just because you can't get rich people to fund your campaign.
Oddly, your argument that "we should be like Europe" doesn't move me any more than it did the numerous times in the past you've used it.
Let me help you here with a real-life US example of "lowering the barriers." We have had a "clean elections" law here in AZ for the past 10-15 years. It hasn't changed a single thing about the elections, other than creating another welfare program for politicians. They are still unresponsive to the voters, and once incumbency is gained they don't care about the money from the State because they get private contributions, which cannot be curtailed without a new Amendment to the US Constitution. Good luck with that.