YEAH, YEAH, THE DEMOCRATS PROBABLY ARE SOMEWHAT LESS CORRUPT THAN THE REPUBLICANS--NOT COUNTING PARTY BOSS EMANUEL. SO?

It's somehow more satisfying to skewer your ideological enemies for corruption and hypocrisy than politicos with whom you basically agree with on most matters. William Jefferson--he of the fridge with $90,000 in cold, hard cash--should face the consequences of his faithlessness as an elected official, but his sins interest me far less than those of Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Roy Blunt or Jerry Lewis. Of course their systematic and highly organized corruption is, by any standards, far more serious and egregious than the kind of lowlife penny-ante stuff it looks like Jefferson was engaged in. His brand of corruption was more in line with Randy "Duke" Cunningham's. I just searched DWT for "cunningham" and got 222 hits. I followed with "William Jefferson" and got 4--and all 4 mention far worse crooks than Jefferson in the headlines: John Doolittle, Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert and Steny Hoyer.

In the last few days I've been thinking less about Right vs. Left than about Insider vs. the rest of us. In a few hours I'm flying down to Paraguay to scope out the new 98,840-acre Bush estate down there. Some reports say the Bush land grab is more like 200,000 acres, and every report confirms that it sits atop one of the world's biggest (and most valuable) aquifers. I spoke to a Paraguayan official who told me that in 80 years the Bush land would be worth more than an oil field because of that water. And for as long as DWT has been sounding the alarm about "Duke" Cunningham and Tom Noe, we've been talking about how the ultimate corruption of the Bush Regime has never been about stealing a million or ten here or there, but about building generational wealth at the expense of us and our children.

Everyone I know--relatives, close friends, acquaintances--was aware that I dedicated the last six months to helping, in whatever small way I could, to drive the corrupt, degenerate, criminal Republicans out of congressional power. Now they say, "I bet you're happy!" Do you think I am? Well, I'm a generally happy guy--but not politically. Sure, I'm glad that Nancy Pelosi will be the speaker of the House instead of "Planet Denny" Hastert, and I'm glad that Harry Reid will be the Senate majority leader instead of Mitch McConnell; absolutely and unequivocally. But . . . well, at first I thought I wasn't jumping for joy because, although 12 of our Blue America candidates won, some of the men and women I liked most didn't. I had such high, high hopes for what people like Angie Paccione, Victoria Wulsin, John Laesch, Coleen Rowley, Tony Trupiano, Robert Rodriguez and Donna Edwards could do for our country.

I realized, though, that that wasn't at the root of the queasy feeling at the pit of my stomach.

The election results weren't even in yet, and the very worst elements of the Democratic Party were successfully claiming credit for the grassroots victory that was unfolding. The Insider media was buying into the Insider politicians' line that Rahm Emanuel won the election. I was even on a panel a few days later and a perfectly credible progressive blogger asked me to give Rahm some credit for his hard work and brilliance. (I'm sorry I snapped and launched into a tirade. That blogger will probably never talk to me again.)

Was this an election about derailing the careers of a bunch of perfectly contemptible Republicans like Curt Weldon and Dirty Dick Pombo and J. D. Hayworth so that the careers of perfectly contemptible Democrats like Rahm Emanuels and Steny Hoyers and Tim Mahoneys could be put on the fast track? Or was this an election that was supposed to bring real and systemic change to our political system? Will we never be plagued by rigged electronic voting machines again? Will it be made clear that attacking our democracy is as serious as attacking buildings and people? Will there be consequences so people know to never do it again? What about the root of all political corruption, money? Isn't this the time to separate them?

My friend David Donnelly is the national campaigns director for the Public Campaign Action Fund. Yesterday he did an op-ed piece for the Baltimore Sun about this being the time for public financing of elections. Like many of my colleagues and friends, David feels that "voters gave the next Congress an unmistakable mandate: Clean up your act." He reminds us that exit polling showed 42% of voters saying corruption was the single most important factor in determining whom to vote for--bigger than Iraq, terrorism or the economy! Corruption was a major factor in the defeat of incumbents like Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), Rep. Dirty Dick Pombo (R-CA), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) and every statewide office holder in Ohio (governor, attorney general, secretary of state, U.S. senator, etc.), and for extremely close calls for dozens more.

Dave writes that "voters want more than just to remove the rotten apples. They believe the barrel--the system--is rotten, and they want comprehensive change in how elections are paid for, not just convictions of bribe-taking politicians." He wonders if Democrats are up to the task of cleaning up the mess. Over 100 Democrats are on record as supporting, at least in a general sense, "clean elections," a system that really does "force candidates to spend more time listening to voters than to campaign donors." Sounds good, huh? Not so fast.

On the other hand, congressional Democrats' fundraising has hit all-time highs. According to the Federal Elections Commission, 38 of the top 50 fundraising challengers were Democrats, 11 of whom raised more than $2 million. Democratic challengers had nearly a 3-to-1 fundraising advantage over Republican challengers, though that was largely due to the Republicans' defensive electoral posture. Will their fundraising prowess color their perception on the nature of the problems inherent in the private financing of our elections?

Speaker-to-be Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, has pledged to "sever the ties between lobbyists and legislation" in the first 100 hours of running the House of Representatives in January. The proposed changes are good first steps, as they try to restore ethics and to rein in some of the ways insider lobbyists curry favor. But the proposals don't touch one dollar contributed by lobbyists and special interests to campaigns.

The Democrats ought to think big and ask the Republicans to join them in proposing to publicly finance all congressional elections. It can be paid for with less than what is unaccounted for in Halliburton's Iraq contract. Americans know that, right now, we have the best government money can buy. The problem is with who is doing the buying.

David cites Steny Hoyer, part of the corrupt Emanuel machine and a notorious K Street hack--as well as the new House majority leader-- as a supporter of "clean elections." When I spoke with him on the phone, I got the idea he'd support a clean elections bill on the same day and with as much enthusiasm as Roy Blunt and John Boehner, the new House minority leader and whip.

William Rivers Pitt also wrote about corruption and reform yesterday. And, predictably, he's in agreement with Dave about the need for Democrats to step up to the plate in a real way. "The Democratic calls for reform before the election proved to be one of the central reasons the GOP found itself on the losing side of an electoral rout. . . . The size of the Democratic victory on November 7th gives the new majority a powerful mandate to make the necessary changes to the way business is done on the Hill."

And like many of us who worked so hard to cleanse the Congress, Pitt is worried that the Democrats' reforms may tend towards the superficial and cosmetic.

While the new majority appears to be moving toward assembling and passing a significant reform package, a number of important steps are in danger of being left aside. Proposals are being floated to create public funding for candidates, thereby restricting the power of private persons and corporations to take over the process by way of the checkbook. Another proposal would create an independent ethics watchdog to enforce the new rules, as well as the old rules that have been all too often ignored.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, a proposal has been made to restrict earmarks, commonly known as "pork." Earmarks are anonymously planted into legislation, and are basically the way Congress directs vast amounts of taxpayer money into their own districts. In 2005, some 15,000 earmarks were dropped into various pieces of legislation for a total cost of $47 billion. The most notorious of these was the $223-million earmark for the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska. Earmarks figured prominently in several of the GOP scandals that inspired these calls for reform in the first place.

As it stands, these important proposals are being debated by the new majority, and the members are split on whether to pursue these changes, along with the rest of the reform package. Lobbying reform legislation is slated for debut early next year, just after the new majority is sworn in.

Pitt doesn't know Emanuel the way I do. Which may be why he's more optimistic. He thinks the proposed reforms need to go further. He doesn't get it yet that they will go as far as Emanuel and his boy Steny want them to do, and not a step farther. "It is not enough for the new majority to say, 'The GOP is bad, but we will be better, so trust us.' This is less about which party is more corrupt, and more about a process that is in itself corrupting. The American people spoke quite clearly during the election: They want the Augean stables cleaned out, and the Democrats now have the power to do so. Public financing of campaigns, an independent watchdog to enforce the rules, and a restriction on earmarks, along with the other proposed reforms, would go a long way to fulfilling the demands of the electorate."

How many years will it take before it's the Republicans singing that tune and pointing, convincingly, to Emanuel and Hoyer, making a case for electing reform-minded Republicans to clean up the swamp in Washington?

Next week's Nation has an op-ed that goes a long way toward describing the deepening divide inside the Washington political class. They refer to it as the old politics, represented by selfish, tired party careerists and hacks like James Carville and Stanley Greenberg, and the new politics represented by Howard Dean and others who believe in empowering the grassroots.

Amid Democratic post-election celebrating, there was a bizarre outburst: a malicious attack launched by James Carville against Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic National Committee, demanding his ouster. Carville's freakish initiative was bogus in every way. He has the same influence in party affairs as any other talking head on CNN--that is, none. In a year when the Democrats achieved their first real Congressional victory since 1992, Carville accused Dean of losing seats by not devoting more money to close House races.

The Ragin' Cajun was promptly stuffed. Don Fowler, former state party chair of South Carolina, observed: "Asking Dean to step down now, after last week, is equivalent to asking Eisenhower to resign after the Normandy invasion." Sen. Harry Reid, the new majority leader, rallied to Dean too. "I didn't support his running for the chair of the DNC," Reid said. "I was wrong. He was right: I support his grassroots Democratic Party-building."

Carville's reckless foray, joined by pollster Stanley Greenberg, is worthy of comment only because the two are picking a fight that reflects the deep, potentially explosive fault line in the party: the battle for control between old and new. Carville speaks for yesterday's failed politics--the Clinton years. Dean represents a more promising future with his aggressive efforts to rebuild a fifty-state party that grows from the grassroots up.

On the day after the election, Clintonistas-in-waiting awoke to realize their wing of the party is not represented at the top of the party. For them, it seems, restoration of a Clinton White House--getting Senator Hillary Clinton nominated in 2008--needs inside influence. Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, despite their cultural differences, are both labor liberals. So why not take a shot at Dean and see what happens? Senator Clinton issued a limp disavowal, but if her side wants to start a fight, she can't have it both ways.

To get the hypocrisy, remember that Carville and Greenberg came to fame with Bill Clinton's 1992 "Putting People First" victory. The new President promptly turned right, and his White House eviscerated the DNC's promising coordination of state party campaigns. Clinton politics was all about him. Eight years later, Democrats had lost it all: White House, Senate, House.

In contrast, Dean got a lot of flak when he remarked that Democrats should start talking to everyone, including people in deeply red states. He made the same pitch when he ran for DNC chair in 2005 against the establishment and won.

Surprise--Dean has actually done what he promised. He gets funds to states, with the result that Democrats are speaking directly again to people in red areas, including through ads on Christian-right radio. This is politics for the long term. Nobody expects early conversion in Mississippi. But less than two years after Dean's launch, Democrats won control of the House and Senate for the first time since the Clinton team lost it in 1994.

The party does face a soul-searching reckoning, and this is a good fight to have. But it should not be determined by the typical push-and-shove of Beltway insiders arguing over tactics. The argument has to be more fundamental: Are Democrats ready to take on the big concerns they have so often finessed in this conservative era? Will they respond to the anger and discontents expressed by people in this election, or will they continue to play it safe?