There are a few truisms in life: the sky is blue, water is wet, and politicians of both parties deny they are influenced in any way by campaign contributions. Republican Senator Mike DeWine (OH), confirming this principle, recently told his local paper: "We receive thousands and thousands of contributions, and to think that those contributions influence how I vote is just absurd—it's just crazy." Such denials only show how the culture of corruption has become downright pathological.

Corruption on the part of Republicans is somewhat well tolerated in the country. Despite comedic denials from people like DeWine, the GOP does not usually make a real effort to pretend it is anything other than corporate America's personal sidearm whose barrel is aimed squarely between the eyes of America's middle class. Republicans may justify their incessant selling-out with their "What's Good for Corporate America is Good for America" slogan, but it's only the "Corporate America" part that is of interest to them, and most everybody knows it.

Such behavior from Democrats is more troubling. At the same time that leading Democrats have been publicly berating the GOP for corruption, they have been privately ramping up their own corporate fund-raising operations, and large numbers of Democratic lawmakers have provided the critical votes to pass some of big business's most sought-after prizes. The energy bill, the bankruptcy bill, the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the class-action "reform" bill—all of these were written by the industries they benefit, and all required the support of key Democratic legislators in order to pass.

A "BUSINESS AS USUAL" STRATEGY—Democrats have made strides in addressing the criticism that their style, tone and language make them appear to look down on voters. But now, with polls showing Republican approval ratings plummeting, some in Washington's Democratic circles seem to be looking at the last year and a half and gleaning a lesson that most directly insults voters: that Democrats can say one thing, do another, and still win elections. That might explain why Democratic Party politicians and insiders are more openly talking out of both sides of their mouths.

Consider the recent New York Times article about Democratic presidential candidates' demanding a crackdown on Wal-Mart's anti-worker policies and generally embracing more progressive economic positions. The article teems with populist rhetoric, but buried at the end is this key line: "Some Democrats expressed concern about the direction the party was heading in, saying it could turn back efforts by such party leaders as former President Bill Clinton to erase the image of the party as anti-business and scare off corporations that might be inclined to make contributions."

That sentence is no accident. In Washington, where every word is parsed, where every phrase is packaged, every message has a target audience. In this case, the target was corporate lobbyists, and the message from Democrats was, "Don't worry—it will be business as usual."

Another recent New York Times piece was laced with similar "business as usual" reassurances, these coming from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). The story documented how the former First Lady, who made her name pushing comprehensive health-care reform, has been "receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers and insurers." In all, she is now the second largest recipient of health-industry cash in Congress.

Publicly, Clinton postures as a courageous reformer—an important profile at a time when polls show the public is running out of patience and ranks health care as a top concern. But to her political paymasters, she presents a very different image. In a speech to the Federation of American Hospitals, Clinton all but apologized for trying to fix the health-care system during her husband's first term, telling the audience, "We tried to do too much too fast 12 years ago." Left unsaid by Clinton—but probably not unheard by the audience—was a soothing message that Democratic congressional victories will not result in any real boat rocking.

Clinton's is savvy enough to keep her corporate fealty from being thrown squarely in the public's face. The same cannot be said of her colleague Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT)—a politician who at one moment sententiously poses as a moral and principled man of the people, and at the next holds forth at lavish banquets to thank corporate America for underwriting his political campaigns.

Days before Connecticut's Democratic primary, in August, in which Lieberman ran against businessman Ned Lamont, the Hartford Courant reported that "big givers crammed a room at the Washington Court hotel . . . to salute and contribute money to their old friend, Joe Lieberman." The most telling speech at the event came from a former Lieberman chief of staff, Michael Lewan; he had gone on to become an Enron lobbyist and a fund-raiser for Connecticut Republican governor John Rowland—the same John Rowland who resigned in disgrace to do jail time on corruption charges. Lewan told the audience, "The Washington lawyers and lobbyists in those rooms will come back for Joe Lieberman. Who knows what Lamont would be like?"