candidate for President in 08
We will not win in 08 just by standing by and watching the GOP blow up in scandal. This article in the Nation magazine lays out the shortcomings of such a plan. We have to have someone who will be seen by the public as an honest reformer. There is no better person for that then Russ Feingold. Remember Feingold is also the first to come out with a plan to end our involvement in Iraq, and the only Senator to vote against the Patriot act.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/editors<snip>
Scandals are healthy for the body politic. Like fevers and other symptoms of physical illness, they alert us to the diseases that attack our democracy and its government, and the publicity that accompanies major scandals often leads to the removal of the most toxic agents from the system. Such has been the case with the scandal surrounding Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The revelations regarding his transformation from conservative partisan into ultimate Washington fixer have confirmed, for anyone who was still unsure, that Washington under Republican rule is defined by a culture of corruption. And it has removed from the councils of leadership the pre-eminent practitioner of that corruption, Congressman Tom DeLay, who, faced with Abramoff's decision to rat out his co-conspirators, gave up his quest to return as House majority leader.
So far, so good. But now we get to the tricky part of any political scandal: the question of whether the initial revelations and removals will be misinterpreted as cures for what ails a very sick system. As of now, the scandal has wrought no change in the way business is done in Washington. And there is every reason to believe that the House Republican Caucus will continue to be run by junior DeLays, who amid talk of how everyone must follow the rules will quickly get back to the business of bending those rules in the same direction as did their deposed master. Roy Blunt, the veteran DeLay lieutenant who is the frontrunner to replace his former boss, is not going to change a thing. Blunt's chief challenger, John Boehner, talks a better line about cleaning up the caucus, but Boehner's been swimming for years in the same pay-to-play pool as DeLay and Blunt. No one is standing for the GOP leadership as a genuine reformer echoing the honest talk of renegade conservatives like Jeff Flake, who told his fellow Republicans, "We don't just need new leaders, we need a course correction. This is deeper than just who stands at the head of the party. We have created a system here...that just breeds corruption." Flake's right about that, just as he is right to point out that unless Republicans enact "meaningful reforms" now, they may be in the minority after midterm elections. An AP/Ipsos poll, taken after Abramoff accepted a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation of Congressional wrongdoing, found that Americans favored handing control of Congress to the Democrats by a 49-to-36 margin.
Feingold understands that Democrats who would identify themselves as reformers have to start with clean hands. He also understands that reformers need more than symbolism; they need a program. While there are moves afoot to enact slightly tougher controls on the free meals, entertainment and travel that members of Congress now accept from lobbyists, Feingold and Massachusetts Democrat Marty Meehan are pushing for an appropriately aggressive agenda that would bar gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress and Hill staffers, would double--to two years--the time retiring lawmakers must wait before lobbying Congress and double to $100,000 the fine for failing to file lobbying reports.
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