As companies like Enron, Adelphia, WorldCom, Qwest, Global Crossing and others admitted to misrepresenting their financial health or defrauding shareholders, pressure has built in Washington for the government to do more to prevent corporate malfeasance.

In response to the public outcry and intense media coverage, Congress passed, and the president signed, a corporate responsibility measure aimed at preventing many of the recent corporate abuses from happening again.

The new bill created tougher fraud penalties for corporate officers and prison terms of up to 20 years for fraud and document shredding - as well as an independent, five-member board with subpoena power to oversee the accounting industry. The legislation also banned personal loans from companies to corporate officers and limited the services accounting firms may provide to audit clients.

Despite the new legislation, political analysts have said the corporate responsibility issue could help Democrats in the fall elections.

"Democratic leaders see the issue of corporate responsibility as a winner," Jim Drinkard reported in USA Today. "It gives them a chance to motivate their faithful voters in an off-year election, when turnout is key."

Both Democrats and Republicans needed little prompting to make business ethics a key plank in their campaigns. According to a Campaign Media Analysis Group survey of advertising, 22 candidates spent $3.4 million to run ads discussing corporate responsibility in the first 10 days of August.

In some races, the issue has begun to overshadow other topics of debate. In the Colorado Senate race, Democratic candidate Tom Strickland has accused incumbent Wayne Allard of taking more than $100,000 from troubled communications giant Qwest. Allard has fired back, pointing to Strickland's legal work for another corporate bad apple, Global Crossing.

Although some races feature two candidates focusing on business ethics, Republicans have generally expressed more concern over the corporate issue.

"I think we probably have more exposure because the public tends to equate us with big business," Mike Hellon, a member of the Republican National Committee, recently told the Los Angeles Times.

A recent USA Today/CNN poll indicates that is partly true. According to respondents, 76 percent of Americans said big business had too much influence over Republicans. But the number is only slightly lower for Democrats, with 63 percent of respondents saying large corporations held too much sway.

An initial response from Republican Party officials was to "Blame it on the Bubble" -- meaning level some of the blame on a lack of oversight by the Clinton administration during the 1990s.

"[The Clinton administration] spent the whole time talking about how the economy was the best it had ever been," Mike McDaniel, former head of the Indiana GOP, told The Los Angeles Times. "But there was more corporate greed taking place during those years than at any time in history."

Criticism reached such a level that the former president responded during a July 28 television interview, saying Republicans were resorting to a political blame game.

"[Republican leaders] ran on responsibility, but as soon as you scratch them, they go straight to blame," Mr. Clinton told Washington, DC's WJLA-TV in Washington, DC. "It's factually wrong. There was corporate malfeasance both before [President Bush] took office and after. The difference is, I actually tried to do something about it."

The blame question aside, Republican lawmakers have been pushing their leaders and the White House to aggressively deal with the issue of corporate malfeasance.

"We will advance further than [President] Bush will at this stage of the game," The Washington Post quoted Florida Republican Mark Foley as saying. "He can't control everything... sometimes we have to lead."

U.S. Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.), locked in a tight race for the Senate, agreed.

"What's problematic about this is what is the effect on the economy... It's the difference between running with the wind at your back and running with the wind in your face," Thune said.

--By Lee Banville, Online NewsHour