Will the ‘culture of corruption’ theme fly?

There are other things working against Busby and the Democrats. Perhaps the biggest, observers explain, is that Cunningham — unlike DeLay and Ney — isn’t on the ballot, which makes it harder to link his misdeeds to the other Republicans in the field. In fact, one GOP candidate, businessman Eric Roach, is already running a TV ad distancing himself from Cunningham. “Congress is in session, and our seat is empty,” Roach says in the ad. “Empty because of corruption and greed.… I want to put an end to the politics of greed.”

“Cunningham is really irrelevant because he’s not on the ballot,” said Carl Forti, a spokesman at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The cynical voter
In addition, polls suggest that campaigning against corruption might not be that effective for Democrats. A recent RT Strategies/Cook Political Report poll found that 61 percent of respondents blame both Republicans and Democrats for corruption in Washington. Fourteen percent said Republicans were more to blame, while 4 percent said Democrats were.

Indeed, Republicans aren’t the only ones with ethics problems: Recently, allegations surfaced that Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., demanded bribes for using his clout to arrange African business deals, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has been accused of using his congressional aides as personal servants.

Yet Busby has an advantage in this race that goes beyond Cunningham’s jail sentence: the crowded and wide-open GOP field. Of the 14 Republicans in the race, analysts say the frontrunners appear to be former U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, former state Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, state Sen. Bill Morrow, Roach and businessman Alan Uke. But with so many candidates running in a special election that normally turns out so few voters, the actual Republican winner who gets to face Busby in a June 6 runoff (assuming no candidate gets above 50 percent next month) is anyone’s guess. 

The benefit of confusion
Here’s another twist that could benefit Busby: The June 6 runoff occurs on the same day as the regularly scheduled GOP primary for this seat. So, if the losers in the April 11 vote don’t end their campaigns, it’s conceivable that the Republican winner of the June 6 primary could be someone different from the winner of the special election. Confused? Republican voters certainly would be.

And despite the district’s GOP leanings, Busby thinks that voters who have sided with Cunningham and the Republicans in the past might be up for grabs this time. “I think they are going to look at the people who are running and what they stand for.”

But Republicans believe that this seat is theirs to lose. “Ultimately, the voters in this district are a fairly conservative lot,” said Bilbray spokesman Dave Gilliard, noting that issues like illegal immigration and taxes are on voters’ minds — not corruption. “It is a hard equation for Democrats.”

Yet Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report contends that an eventual GOP victory in this contest wouldn’t signal that Republicans are bulletproof to “culture of corruption” attacks by Democrats (both DeLay and Ney, after all, still face tough elections). Nor would it suggest that their party is safe from losing seats in November. “If Republicans hold this seat, that doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods by any means,” he said.

Mark Murray covers politics for NBC News.

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