I've been saying for months to anyone who will listen that along with Iraq, the corruption issue is the defining issue in politics right now. It's why I wrote an entire book about it called Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government - And How We Take It Back. During my 40-city book tour, I heard from a number of political pontificators that no, no one cares about corruption and that it wouldn't swing the election, as my book predicted. Well, days after the election, none other than Karl Rove is admitting that the hostile takeover was the number one critical issue in the election.
Here's the excerpt from Time Magazine:
"The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected," Rove tells TIME. "Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard [the disgraced evangelical leader] added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass."
The centrality of corruption in the election played out on a number of issues - not just on corruption itself. For instance as a new Public Citizen report shows, candidates talked a lot about how corporate lobbyists have manipulated our trade policy to crush workers. Candidates also talked a lot about how the Bush Energy Bill was written by the oil industry and thus gave away massive wasteful tax breaks to oil companies.
The centrality of the hostile takeover in the election played out on a number of issues, beyond just lobbying/ethics reform. For instance as a new Public Citizen report shows, candidates talked a lot about how corporate lobbyists have manipulated our trade policy to crush workers. Candidates also talked a lot about how the Bush Energy Bill was written by the oil industry and thus gave away massive wasteful tax breaks to oil companies. The list goes on.
This post isn't an "I told you so" - it's a reminder to everyone that when the new Congress opens, the very first order of business must be major lobbying/ethics reform, as Nancy Pelosi has proposed. She might get serious opposition from people like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer, both of whom have spent the last year shaking down Big Money interests for cash and bragging about that to reporters. But even Rove admits there is a mandate by voters for Congress to really change things and stop the hostile takeover of our government by big money interests.