Lesser of two evils: Would you pick a crook over a political rival?

Despite having been indicted last week for accepting a bribe, Derrick Smith of the Illinois House of Representatives won his party's primary Tuesday in Chicago. The story behind the bribe? Smith was allegedly paid $7,000 in cash to write a letter in support of a state grant for a day care center. This adds to a long list of Illinois lawmakers who have faced corruption charges, including Anazette Collins, George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich.

Smith faces up to ten years in prison should he be convicted.

In spite of his alleged crime, Smith had no trouble beating out Democratic rival Tom Swiss, who was once a chairman of the Cook County Republican Party, with 76 percent of the vote. U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) had rallied Chicagoans to back Smith rather than Swiss in light of the latter's previous involvement with the GOP. In reference to this, Davis said: "There's nothing wrong with being a Republican, except that if people are going to vote for a Republican, they ought to know they’re voting for a Republican."

Although Smith will likely step down from his office before the November general election, the symbolic support of an alleged crook over someone with a clean record who just so happens to have been a Republican is a little troubling. Are we so hostile towards opposing parties that we'd rather a criminal be in office than someone whose politics we disagree with?

Sound off in the comments section to answer these age-old questions: How much importance do you place on a politician's character? Can you still generally trust a politician whose character has come into question to govern properly? Is there a "corruption threshold" at which you would no longer be able to vote for a politician, even if they shared your political beliefs?

Campaign Contributions Gone Wild

We learned about the court case Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed for SuperPACs to donate unlimited amounts of money in undisclosed fashions, potentially allowing for all sorts of corruption and crony capitalism shenanigans to take place.

Given the option for anonymity, it seems strange that Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has decided to openly threaten cutting funding for congressmen should they fail to pass the MPAA's favorite laws, SOPA and PIPA.

This seems to be pretty strong evidence that something shady is going on in our congress. But it also makes me wonder: if he felt this sort of thing was acceptable to talk about on national TV, does that mean that crony capitalism goes on enough to delude him into thinking it is well accepted as the norm?
What do you enlightened scholars think?

Here's a related article about more nonsense in the MPAA: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/04344817524/wil-wheaton-says-chris-dodd-is-lying-about-lost-jobs-says-mpaa-accounting-creates-more-losses-than-piracy.shtml

The Protest againist Wall Street

For the past three weeks, a group called Occupy Wall Street has been protesting in New York City. They are protesting againist corruption and greed that has plauged Wall Street and is what many believe caused the recession. The group has said that they represent 99% of the population of the United States againist the richest 1% of the population. To add onto what Lexi said about the protest, the protesters marched in Saturday, October 1, halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge before the police arrested 700 people. The protesters are accusing the police of allowing the protester to enter the bridge before trapping them and arresting them. As of this morning, there are simular protests starting in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. Will this lead to the kind of change that was seen during the Arab Spring or is it just a bunch of people craving the media attention? I think that it is a bit of both. They desire legitimate changes, like stopping corruption on Wall Street. I think there should be better way to get this desire accomplished but with the government not functioning effectively because of the partionship, there really is no other choice.