abraham lincoln, who i believe was republican, warned that concentrated capital had become, throat, enthrowned in the political system, and he worried about an era of, quote, corruption in high places until the republic is destroyed. i have to believe that if abraham lincoln were around today he would be reinforced in that particular judgment. as we went through the corruption in the grant administration that led to the pendleton act in 1883, the corruption involving outsized corporate influence on president theodore roosevelt that led to the tillman work in 1907, the teapot dome scandal that resulted in the federal corrupt practices act of 1925, the abuse of federal employees that led in 1938 to the passage of the hatch act, the taft-hartley act in 1947, the watergate scandal spurring the federal election campaign act of 1974 and that was revised, of course, by buckley, and on through the abuses of soft money in other ways that brought about the federal election campaign reform -- bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002. it was scandals that led to corruption that led to change. all of that fo