-That the Dems took no cash from Abramoff is a freak of nature -- like a -piece of straw drilled into a tree by a tornado. It happens from time to -time.
I'm not going to argue that Dems aren't in hock to various corporate interests, but the fact that they didn't take Abramoff money is more than a freak of nature-- it shows a specific schism in the corporate world with the emergence of hard-right ideological money tied exclusively to one party.
I'm actually a big fan of the K Street Project precisely because it's cut off Dems from a variety of corporate funding sources and forced them to rely more on grassroots fundraising. The rise of Dean as DNC chair was driven partly by the desperation of Democrats seeing their corporate funding sources drying up.
-- Nathan Newman