Local political news has begun to reek more than usual of cigarette smoke and teenage hormones, and I have a theory that politics is evolving the same way as rock-and-roll.

It started with Bill Clinton, of course, supposedly the first rock-and-roll president -- though I still think Calvin Coolidge exuded a certain silent-but-deadly Sid Vicious/Keith Richards vibe, and Chester A. Arthur had a kind of early T. Rex thing happening. But Clinton was the first one caught acting like a rock star in the oval office -- hanging with groupies, air-brushing ``Precious and Few'' on the side of his van, decorating the Lincoln bedroom with Cat Stevens posters.

More accurately, though, Clinton has merely been our first soft-rock president. He's Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins, treacley lyrics given substance by offstage rumors of decadence and rot. Sure, Clinton has a favorite Beatle. But it's Paul.

Now what have we got? In the last two weeks, a fistfight nearly broke out at a school board meeting in Passaic, a school board member in Garfield got zapped for having his wife hired as a district secretary and the mayor of Camden reacted to a patch of bribery charges by holding an impromptu press conference on his motorcycle.

Meanwhile, the Passaic County superintendent of elections Peter Ryerson arranged for half his staff to go on a government-funded junket to Atlantic City -- even while the U.S. Justice Department sued the county for discriminating against Hispanic voters, the FBI investigated alleged tampering with voting machines and the state Senate made arrangements for ditching Ryerson like an old Spice Girl.

Shut up, I'm not done. That was also around the same time U.S. Senate candidate Jon Corzine reportedly asked an Italian building contractor if he made cement shoes (funny stuff, Jon; thanks for coming on our show). And, lest we forget, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani reacted sensitively and prudently to the police shooting death of an unarmed security guard by releasing juvenile records and generally playing hardball with a dead guy. And losing.

It's raw. It's shameless. It's fire breathing, blood spitting, chanting, stomping exploitation. It's heavy freakin' metal.

It's like how, in music, all that hippie-dippy peacenik stuff sounds so freaky until somebody turns Paul Simon into elevator music, basically by just pulling out the vocal track. The same thing happens with politicians. What's the difference, really, between Clinton and Eisenhower, except a shock of hair and a hot tub? So the next generation rebels and turns rude. Crosby, Stills and Nash become Def Leopard, and the only way for state assemblymen to look cool is to hire one-armed drummers.

Ryerson? He's Quiet Riot -- big parties, big arguments, with a quick, hilarious dive into obscurity. Camden's zany, indicted Mayor Milton Milan is Sammy Hagar after David Lee Roth went back to Van Halen -- that same ``Why's everybody treatin' me so cruddy all a sudden?'' look in his eye. It's tempting to say Giuliani is KISS, since he, too, would be a great act if he only realized how ridiculous he looked. But he's so eerily akin to Ted Nugent that it makes your teeth rattle -- though perhaps your teeth are rattling because somebody is bashing them in.

Someday, the moribund categories Democrat and Republican will be replaced by parties named after Sheryl Crow and Limp Bizkit. But by then, Christina Aguilera will be president, and the entire Congress will be a power rotation of folky, college-radio complaint rock. You think the legislature never gets anything done now....