From time to time the relationship between the power of money, and this country's more noble progressive ideals get seriously out of balance. A classic example was at the turn of the last century. Branded the Gilded Age, it was an historical moment of obscene acquisition. Wealth ruled the nation, and thrived on influence, the manipulation of raw political power, and a total disregard for the democracy that had made this country strong.

Similar periods occurred during the 1920s, and as recently as the 1980s and 1990s. Everything was for sale -- including the politicians who had been elected to guard the welfare of those who could not afford to protect themselves from the predatory appetites of the wealthiest members of American society.

Serious evidence suggests that we are in the midst of another such period in American history. The New York Times recently referred to it as "The Wal-Martization of America." Millions of American families are one paycheck, or a second or third job, away from abject poverty. A minimum of 51 million American workers live without proper health insurance, and an inability to pay medical bills is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.

What was once a large and prosperous middle class in this country is rapidly beginning to decline. The 21 million workers who earn between $30,000 and $50,000 have little room to move when faced with feeding, clothing, educating and providing health care for a normal family of four.

Millions of families live a heartbeat, or a job layoff, away from being wiped out. A recent Harvard study shows personal bankruptcy is at an all-time high. In this past year, 1.6 million people filed, with 92 percent of those coming from the middle class.

Should this frightening trend continue to accelerate, the real possibility exists that the American democracy of Jefferson and Franklin could be in serious jeopardy.

Recently Kevin Phillips, former chief political strategist for Richard Nixon and author of "Wealth and Democracy," said he no longer believes that democracy even exists in this country, but has in fact been replaced by a plutocracy -- a government controlled by its wealthiest individuals to promote their own specific agenda.

"The plutocracy," Phillips said, "and I think we have one now -- and we didn't 12 years ago -- is when money has ceased just entertaining itself with leveraged buyouts, and all the stuff they did in the 1980s. It has now taken over politics, and takes it over on both sides when money not only talks, money screams. When you start developing philosophies in which giving a check is a First Amendment right. That's incredible. But what you've got is that this is what money has done. It has produced the fusion of money and government. And that is plutocracy."

At the turn of the last century, this country was blessed to have courageous and progressive politicians such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson who recognized the threat that unchecked monetary influence over politics and government represented to American democracy. Roosevelt's famous quote that, "Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare might require it," would undoubtedly have him expelled from his own party -- should he have the audacity to say it in modern times.

What has happened is that the rich in this country have decided that they are willing to spend whatever it takes not just to buy an occasional senator or congressman, not the president or the vice president, but the entire system. They have purchased laws and government contracts, tax loopholes and the White House. And, they have shielded their purchases in layers of executive and governmental protections.

And what are the implications of this corrupt purchase?

This massive takeover is rapidly undermining and destroying America's greatest and most stabilizing asset -- this country's middle class -- the very foundation of our democracy. It is a conscious attack determined to reduce this nation to a country of rulers and ruled -- greatly expanding the chasm between rich and poor -- while focusing government's attention on protecting the venal lucre of the nation's wealthiest few.

Since the early 1970s the average annual salary, adjusted for inflation, has risen from $32,522 to $35,864 -- according to a Fortune magazine study -- an increase of approximately 10 percent. In that same time the annual compensation of this country's top 100 CEOs has increased from $1.3 million to $37.5 million -- according to the same Fortune survey.

Over this 30-year period, we have seen American CEOs earnings increase from 39 times the pay of the average worker to more than 1,000 times in 1999.

In comparison the CEOs of major corporations in Great Britain and France earn only 22 times the wages of their average workers.

But remarkably, as we approach a presidential election year President Bush and his Republican Party are doing their best to ignore these realities, while the Democrats seem incapable of framing new ideas to correct them.

At a moment in American history that invites anticipation, innovation and the courage for bipartisan cooperation, all we are hearing is mind-numbing babble.

We have little doubt that the vast majority of middle-class voters would embrace a presidential candidate who stepped forward and expressed positions designed to restore their position of strength in American society.

A candidate who understands that Americans hunger for boldness and innovation. A candidate who understands that the power of ideas, eloquently articulated will defeat money, and its plutocracy, in this arid climate of greed and acquisition.

It is what Teddy Roosevelt would do.

Is there one out there?