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Sex, lies and Election Day
The fallout from Foley and the House page scandal
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WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans seem to have reeled from one crisis to the next during the past two years. But as the uproar intensified this week over the advances by former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., toward underage congressional pages -- and threatened to engulf even House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., himself -- GOP members privately acknowledged that this scandal is so serious that it could prove to be a deathblow in the November elections.
"If we don't turn this around, we face the serious threat of losing the gavel and of Nancy Pelosi becoming speaker," a House Republican committee chairman said in an interview Wednesday evening. The veteran GOP lawmaker said that he had warned his senior aides to prepare for the worst.
A member of the conservative House Republican Study Committee agreed that the Foley crisis could wipe out the GOP majority. "This could be the last thing -- the straw" that breaks the camel's back, he said in an interview. "For members who have tight races, this is just one more hurdle they have to clear." This lawmaker particularly worried that the party's conservative base will stay home in disgust on Election Day. "Social conservatives will say more should have been done," he said. "It's just going to dominate the conversation while we're gone."
Likewise, Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., said that although Republicans had hoped to spend October in their districts talking about the war on terrorism and border security, "all of these members are going to be going before editorial boards and looking for endorsements, and the first three questions are going to be about this [Foley] thing."
"The repercussions of [Foley's] horrible decisions are harming other people," added Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. "Individual members cannot control the quality of their own campaign." And McHenry conceded that his party's political prospects were already dicey. "As House Republicans this year, we have a small margin of error within which to operate," he said. "We can't have many mistakes."
After several days of withstanding some angry intraparty criticism and suggestions that he should resign because of his role in the Foley matter, Hastert held an October 5 press conference in Illinois at which he declared, "I expect to run for speaker" in the new Congress.
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"The bottom line is, I am taking responsibility for it because ultimately, the buck stops here. I'm sorry that this happened," Hastert said of Foley's advances toward underage pages. "When Republicans found out about the explicit [online] messages, Republicans dealt with it immediately, and he is gone. We are now trying to correct the problem." But it was unclear whether Hastert's statements this week, along with the investigations and other corrective steps that he has called for, will be enough for the Republicans to salvage their political prospects -- or whether the scandal will be all-consuming right up until Election Day.
Before Foley's September 29 resignation sent shock waves across Washington, Republicans believed that they had made some progress toward overcoming their problems. Since late August, President Bush had been gradually reclaiming the initiative from Democrats with a well-executed public-relations offensive on terrorism and security issues. During the last week of September, Congress finally gave approval to legislation authorizing Bush's military tribunal program and to other key defense and homeland-security measures.
Buoyant House GOP strategists staged a Capitol ceremony on Congress's getaway day, September 29, as Republican members prepared to go home to their districts and intensify their campaigns by rolling out television ads and direct-mail blitzes. "The nation and the world still need the Congress to lead, and Republicans are meeting that need every day," Hastert said in prepared remarks.
But that mid-afternoon ceremony was disrupted by reporters demanding to know more about Foley's just-disclosed resignation. The media had no interest in the legislation creating the new military commissions. And since that Friday afternoon, virtually all discussion of GOP policy initiatives has been superseded.
The Foley revelations halted whatever momentum Bush and his Republican allies had been building. No longer able to dominate the political dialogue, Bush saw his job-approval rating -- which had been inching upward in September polls, much to the relief of GOP operatives -- fall back below 40 percent in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal and CNN polls that were conducted as the scandal broke. The already low public approval for congressional Republicans also dropped in several polls.
Suddenly, the tide had turned again. "We were making progress; there was some voice and lift to the Republican message," said veteran party strategist Bill Greener. "Instead this [Foley scandal] has become the content and focus of the political discussion."
Not only have Republican incumbents lost -- at least temporarily -- a favorable backdrop for their final campaign push, the Foley story is still unfolding, creating a sense of dread and uncertainty in GOP ranks. If the scandal remains Exhibit A in the Democrats' charges of GOP corruption in Washington, control of the House will likely shift, and control of the Senate could, too.
The political environment could change again before November 7, of course. But, for now, "this has created anxiety among Republican operatives and question marks for what it means," said GOP consultant Brett Bader, who is based outside of Seattle.
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