Great article by my friend Zach Roth of the Washington Monthly on public financing of elections, and how it is not only the right thing to do, but would be in Democrats' interests politically for a number of reasons (won't have to kowtow to corporate types, hits a GOP funding base, can actually look in the mirror without seeing Ken Lay's corpse, etc.).

On a related note, it is amazing to see in so many instances that certain Democrats cannot seem to pick up a history book and have any clue about the power of issues like this to appeal to people in a populist way (I'm talking to you Ben Nelson, who can't even find a populist position on this ridiculous war, even though people are overwhelmingly against it). Sell public financing as anti-corruption and anti-corporation, and you'd see how well it would do.

Too many Democrats are still mired in the culture of Reagan/Gingrich/Bush, afraid of there own shadow and scared of being called liberal on economics, war...almost anything. How the hell do they think Medicare, Social Security, etc. ever passed if people did not support programs like this, and if Republicans could not be linked to corruption like Ann Coulter and genital warts or Mark Foley and The Goonies?