April 10, 2008
Corruption and real life
After eight years of the most corrupt Administration since Harding, corruption ought to be a natural issue for the Democrats this year. And it's still possible that a string of Abramoff-related indictments of Congressfolk will bring it into prominence. So far, though, the public doesn't seem to think that the Republicans are more corrupt than the Democrats, or that corruption is something that affects day-to-day life. (I think it has been a mistake for Democrats to ignore corruption in Iraq as an important aspect of the Iraq issue.)
One of Barack Obama's new TV spots in Pennsylvania starts to make the connection in what I think is the right way.
The Medicare prescription drug coverage bill explicitly forbids Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. The chair of the House committee that wrote that law quit Congress two months later to take a $2 million-a-year job lobbying for Big Pharma. Suddenly "reducing lobbyist influence" isn't some vague wine-track goo-goo issue; it's about Grandma's heart medicine. Well done.
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