From Tom Paine
By David Sirota

It is now conventional wisdom that the 2006 election was decided on two major issues: Iraq and corruption. Exit polls show that’s the case, and even Karl Rove admits it. That this storyline has become such a given is particularly humorous for me. It was just a few months ago that I was criss-crossing the country on a 40-city tour for my book,Hostile Takeover, telling audiences not to listen to Washington pundits who said corruption important; that, in fact, corruption was going to play a major role in the election, and that if Democrats refused to take the issue seriously when they claimed the majority, we could be in for the shortest congressional majority of the last century.

But, many people I met asked, What does it mean for Democrats to take the issue ˜seriously’? The answer is simple: They must attack not only the headline-grabbing excesses of gifts, trips and meals, but also, more significantly, go after the core of the problem, which is the nexus of money and politics. Specifically, they must push to publicly finance all congressional elections.

I know, I know–I and other groups like Public Campaign have probably sounded like a broken record on this issue for a long time now. But that’s only because the campaign financing system really is at the root of corruption. We have a system that is legalized bribery–legal campaign contributions go in, and legal legislative favors go out. But just because it is legal, doesn’t mean it isn’t unethical and isn’t one of the major reasons why our government can no longer solve problems. It is. A government cannot solve problems if members of Congress making decisions are forced by virtue of their campaign finances to appease the Big Money interests that are often at the root of those problems.

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