George F. Will's interesting column, on the race to fill the open seat in Colorado's seventh district, brought to mind a piece of paper that crossed my desk a few weeks back. It's a fax, much like the dozens of others that are sent each week to the offices of Washington's lobbying firms and Political Action Committee directors, asking the insiders in the corridors of power to pony up money. First the Will column: If I can give a Cliff notes version of it, it goes something like, "A true Reaganite conservative is facing a Republican base demoralized by Congress' big spending, President Bush's big spending and missteps (i.e., Harriet Miers abortive Supreme Court nomination), but still might win because the bitter primary fight between the two Democratic hopefuls, Ed Perlmutter and Peggy Lamm, are wearing each other out in the run up to the August 8th primary.

Go read Bill Moyers on corruption and money in politics. Click through to get a taste (read more):

Lobbying and ethics reform may be causing fissures in the Republican caucus, but they are coming together around a campaign finance reform that targets independent ‘527’ organizations. The Washington Post reports, “As part of the House GOP proposals, ‘527’ organizations that operate independently of the political parties would no longer be allowed to collect unlimited sums from individuals. … Instead, the groups would be governed by federal campaign finance laws that would restrict such giving to a total of $30,000 from individuals per year.” ‘527’ groups, named after the section of the tax code that governs them, “heavily aided Democrats in the 2004 elections” with such groups as MoveOn and others accepting millions of dollars in donations from small numbers of donors. While Democrats tend to use ‘527’s more than Republicans the group Progress for America, which is closely tied to the White House, helped push the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito and waged a campaign against Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan.