A top-of-the-page headline story like
this one from MSNBC should send shivers up the spines of anyone who believes that Dems can win in 2006 on the "Culture of Corruption" issue alone.
I don't know anything about Congressman Jefferson, and for all I know, he was set up by a Republican-controlled FBI for purely political reasons. But innocent or guilty, now that stories like these are headlines on major Internet news sites, the impression that corruption is equally gnawing at both parties will seep even further into the minds of the electorate.
About the only thing that Democrats can say with any consistency whatsoever is that there is a Culture of Corruption in the Republican party. There certainly is, but that cannot be the only thing Dems run on.
The point has been made by several excellent diarists recently that the party needs to STAND for something, rather than run AGAINST the Republicans. This story, whether it is true or otherwise, shows how fragile this seemingly bedrock issue is. By trotting out a few stories like this and carefully timing them, it is rather simple for the Karl Roves of the world to paint the corruption issue as a two-party issue.
We need to keep pointing out corruption when we see it, but I'll be much, much happier when I finally see Dems consistently repeating some carefully-crafted issues and principles that we STAND for. If the Culture of Corruption meme remains the only leg we that we stand on, it will sooner or later be kicked out from underneath us.
I fear that this story could be the Republicans' first major effort at doing precisely that.