Congressional Democrats are making a lot of noise about the Republican culture of cronyism and corruption lately--and with plenty of good cause. But in my humble opinion, they're going to have to do more than talk about how they're better than the Rs, if they're going to convince voters to put them back into power.
Two recent polls on attitudes towards political corruption ought to be instructive. According to an Associate Press/Ipsos poll, Democrats are seen as more ethical than Republicans by 36-33%, hardly a landslide. And the latest NBC/WSJ poll found a whopping 79 percent believe both political parties have an equal problem with corruption and illegal activities. Just 12 percent say Republicans have a bigger problem, while 5 percent say Democrats have the bigger problem.
The Dems could become more credible on this issue, but that's only IF they back up their own words with some actions. Unilaterally, they could change some of their behavior--say, by making public all their interventions with regulatory agencies--and then challenging Republicans to do the same. Or by listing all their earmarks. Or by rejecting all donations from lobbyists. Or, just for laughs, by posting all their votes on their websites. (Can you believe that almost no members of Congress even do that?)
My old pal Eric Schmeltzer has been on a tear about this for a while. See this post, for example.
Posted by msifry at December 16, 2005 04:12 PM