WASHINGTON – Republican strategists said Monday that public revulsion over the sexually graphic e-mails between former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., and former House pages could compound the party’s problems enough to tip the House to the Democrats in November and jeopardize the party’s hold on the Senate, as well.
As House GOP leaders defended their role in handling revelations that forced Foley on Friday to give up his House seat, party strategists said the scandal threatens to depress turnout among Christian conservatives and could hamper efforts to convince undecided and swing voters that Republicans deserve to remain in the majority.
Among social conservative activists in Washington on Monday, there was intense anger and calls for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to resign.
Republican operatives closely following the battle for the House and Senate said they are virtually ready to concede nearly a third of the 15 seats the Democrats need to recapture control of the House, and that they will spend the next five weeks trying to shelter other vulnerable incumbents from the fallout of the Foley scandal in hopes of salvaging a slender majority.
Foley’s sudden resignation came at the end of a week that already had delivered a series of blows to Republican hopes in November. A National Intelligence Estimate asserted that the war in Iraq is fueling new threats from Islamic jihadists faster than the United States and allies can contain them, and a new book by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward said the administration’s private assessments of Iraq are far worse than officials are telling the public. Taken together, GOP strategists said, the events of the past 10 days have reversed what some Republicans had seen as a modest rebound during the month of September after the worst days of the summer.
By Monday, a number of GOP strategists reported widespread gloom about the party’s prospects, combined with intense anger at the House leadership.
Joe Gaylord, who was former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s top adviser when Republicans seized control of the House in 1994, was pessimistic about the party’s midterm prospects. He said the fallout from Foley’s resignation comes “very close” to assuring a Democratic victory in November.
“The part that causes the greatest fallout is the obvious kind of pall that an incident like this would put on our hardest-core voters, who are evangelical Christians,” he said. “The thing I have said almost since this cycle began is the real worry you have is that (Republicans) just won’t turn out. This is one more nail in that coffin.”
Depressed turnout not only would hurt vulnerable House incumbents but also would make it more difficult for Republicans to hold the most competitive Senate seats, many of which are now virtually even, according to recent polling.
Hastert faces a spreading revolt among some conservatives over the way he and other GOP leaders handled the matter when first alerted to the contact between Foley and one page. Hastert said again Monday that no House Republican leader knew about the most graphic communications until they surfaced on Friday, but that did little to satisfy some conservative activists.
Leaders from about six dozen socially conservative groups held a conference call late Monday afternoon, and participants were described as livid with House GOP leaders.
“They are outraged by how Hastert handled this,” said Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist who participated in the call. “They feel let down, left aside. How can they allow a guy like that to remain chairman of the committee on missing and exploited children when there is any question about e-mails?”
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