Culture of Corruption taking root

This Ipsos poll has a lot of lessons for Democrats should they want to regain Congress in 2006. There's good news and bad news.

First, it appears that the months of drilling the "culture of corruption" line in speeches has paid off.

How serious a problem is political corruption in the United States today? Would you say

Very serious -- 51
Somewhat serious -- 37
Not too serious -- 8
Not at all serious -- 3
Not sure -- 1

Total Serious -- 88
Total Not Serious -- 11

88% think it's a serious problem. That's along the lines of a third-world country, and really points to the alienation Americans feel with the modern political process. This can be a blessing for Democrats, since Republicans are in control of the government and will feel the majority of the sting from this; however, this also plays into the core GOP "we need less government because government is corrupt" line. I've posited in the past that the GOP has no problem being corrupt themselves, since it plays into their own narrative, and in the meantime they can steal whatever they can get.

This next question is the bad news:

In general, which elected officials would you say are more ETHICAL?

Democrats -- 36
Republicans -- 33
Both equally -- 10
Neither is ethical -- 15
Not sure -- 6

This obviously shows that the Republican "everybody does it" tactic is working to an extent. These numbers are not that out of whack from the typical partisan numbers in the country (in fact, they tip towards the Democrats more), so this is obviously a party line divide. I think the "everybody does it" maneuver is demonstrably ridiculous, but among true believers and Fox News Republicans it does appear to be taking hold.

It is important to note that this question obviously refers to incumbents: when asked who is more ethical, the answer has to be based on people already in government. And Republicans simply have more incumbents up for re-election. There are scores of Democrats running for Congress in the next cycle who are coming from outside government (including at least 7 Iraq War veterans); in those races, the "reform the corruption" meme is going to be much stronger.

I think these numbers are fairly encouraging, but they show that the Democrats have a lot of work to do to explain to the American people not only the instances of GOP corruption, but the whys (and there are plenty of whys, keeping the status quo in terms of corporate welfare and big business/government kickbacks being the main one). In addition, getting behind concrete proposals to clean up corruption in Washington will be paramount (like Sen. Feingold's lobbying reform bill). And being honest about instances of corruption in the Democratic party, like the William Jefferson case in Louisiana, would go a long way as well. That would in effect defuse the "everybody does it" talking point, as it will say "Yeah, and when WE do it, we act swiftly and ethically; you try to sweep it under the rug."

It's important to get this messaging down now as we head into the next election cycle.