Earlier in the election cycle, the news was filled with stories of corruption and abuse of power -- Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, and Duke Cunningham, and more recently Mark Foley, Tom Reynolds, and Dennis Hastert. Much of that has fallen to the side as the news from Iraq continues to get worse. But while the issue that has defined this election more than any other is the war in Iraq, an analysis I've done of three dozen of the closest House races shows that the Democratic candidates, the DCCC, or outside organizations have run significant paid media campaigns on the pay-to-play politics of Washington. The airwaves have been filled with ads connecting what GOP reps voted to give Big Pharma and Big Oil in exchange for campaign contributions, as well as the lobbying scandals and campaign contributions in general.

In many of these three dozen races (not a complete analysis by any stretch), voters will choose candidates who have promised to take on the special interests when the get to Washington. I also expect to see between 90 and 100 incoming members of Congress -- incumbents and challengers alike -- who have taken the Voters First Pledge to support public financing of elections, stricter lobbying and ethics rules, and greater transparency on the role that lobbyists play in raising money for candidates.

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This morning my wife and I spent an hour in my son Benjamin's class. He's in third grade. His teacher had thought it would be great for my wife and I to come in and talk about Election Day and the importance of voting. We were happy to do it.

We talked about all the signs they see on the side of the road, the commercials running on television, and what elections mean. We also had them throw out examples of things that they didn't think were political, and we told them how they were. (They offered things like, "This textbook isn't political!" and "Getting sick isn't political.") Of course, our son Benjamin, who has watched me working on passing Clean Elections in states, actually knows who Tom DeLay is (go figure), etc., tried to be the star of the show. We went from discussing all of the things that are impacted by the laws passed by people we elect, to going through the voter file for our small town to see if their parents were registered to vote. Their homework: Make sure their parents vote, and go with them, if possible.

I couldn't help but think, though, about what a disconnect there is between the classroom democracy taught to our kids and the real world democracy practiced by consultants, fundraisers, lobbyists, and power-seekers. Leaving, I also couldn't help but wonder if any of those kids in Benjamin's class would ever be turned on to politics enough to run for office someday. If so, they'd better make their next birthday party a fundraiser.

I'm only half joking. Who can run major office today? This election wil cost an estimated $2.6 billion. It costs between $1 and 2 million for  a challenger to stand a chance. Most have to spend more. It's out of control, and now, out of reach for far too many qualified Americans who see public service as a calling rather an avenue to riches by cashing-in at the end of their time in office. If you spend any time in our public schools, you are immediately confronted with the need for qualified political leaders willing to invest in what's right (education) versus what's wrong (the war in Iraq). But our political system doesn't always pick the best leaders. It generally picks the best fundraisers though. How much overlap is there?

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I'm talking about the special interest money-drenched campaign finance system, which seems to act like a corruption-magnet, while shutting people and good candidates out.

Today's Washington Post story points out that this election is characterized by an unusually large number of races with corruption or personal scandals - perhaps as many as 15 races, according to the story. Fifteen is the Democrats magic number. If you're a Republican, I guess you could say that at least the corruption story has been localized. Isn't that what Tom Reynolds - who running in one of those 15 races impacted by scandal - wanted? Races to be determined not by the news of a corrupt Washington, but 435 individualized elections?

For more than a year, Democrats have tried to gain political advantage from what they called "a culture of corruption" in Republican-controlled Washington. Republican campaign officials insist the theme has not caught on with the public, but even they concede that many individual races have been hit hard.

Though it is clear that the war in Iraq is the dominant nationalized issue of the election, I do think there's a larger theme at work here that invokes the corruption at a national level: this Republican Congress is not listening to the people - they are out of touch, too cozy in Washington, and are stuck defending the status quo mess of their own making. So far, the Democrats have succeeded campaigning on change - change the course in Iraq and change politics-as-usual in Washington.

Should the Congress change hands in January, the Democratic leadership has promised to pass ethics and lobbying reform in the very first 100 hours of running the House to break the nexus of lobbying and lawmaking, in their words. The policy they're suggesting at this point -- Pelosi has pointed to a mixture of lobbying and ethics reforms -- are fine on the surface but don't go to the root of the problem: the pay-to-play, privately-financed campaign finance system that privileges those with money over those with ideas.

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