Josh Marshall takes a step back from the Foley scandal to consider the big picture, particularly as it relates to the House GOP leadership.
[I]n the final weeks before an election it’s critical for each side’s leaders to work together seamlessly. And what do you think the Hastert-Reynolds relationship is like at the moment? Or how about Boehner and Hastert? They still trust each other?
And what happens when Joe Sestak asks Curt Weldon whether he’s lost confidence in Denny Hastert? How does that conversation go?
The simple fact is that to the extent campaigning determines the outcomes of elections, the race goes to the side that can remain on the offensive most consistently and define the national debate on its own terms. Foleygate has made it very hard for the leaders of the House GOP to go on the offensive on anything relevant to the election. For political purposes they’re basically out of commission. And they’ve given Democratic challengers in every district around the country a slew of questions with which to pummel GOP incumbents or any Republican, for that matter, who puts his head up on television. This is in the context of an election that was already going very badly for House Republicans. Foleygate has now made them all but politically defenseless in the final stretch of the campaign. And that is a very big deal.
Quite right. The Foley Five — House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), and Reps. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), John Shimkus (R-Ill.), and Rodney Alexander (R-La.) — were all made aware of Foley’s emails. Right now, each of the five are trying to shift the blame to another member of the five. And aside from pointing a finger, they don’t much want to answer any questions at all. Their phones are no doubt ringing off the hook — but not from candidates anxious to have them visit their home districts.
The result is a party going into a difficult election season with a leadership that’s hobbled and at each other’s throats.
There’s already grumbling from the party’s rank-and-file members:
“Anyone who was involved in the chain of information should come forward and tell when they were told, what they were told and what they did with the information when they got it,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. Mr. King called it a “dark day” for Congress and said, “We need a full investigation.”
Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said any leader who had been aware of Mr. Foley’s behavior and failed to take action should step down. “If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership,” Mr. Shays said.
Every House GOP candidate in the country is going to get asked about their take on the party’s leadership in the chamber. It’s a lose-lose scenario for all of them — either the candidates express confidence in a leadership that looked the other way when confronted with information about a sexual predator preying on minors, or they create additional internal turmoil by withholding support for Hastert, Boehner, & Co.
The prior becomes a campaign issue that hurts a candidate’s chances; the latter keeps the cover-up story on the front page as Republicans give up on their leadership. (A free gift for the first person who can find me evidence of a House Republican launching a behind-the-scenes campaign for Boehner’s or Hastert’s job…)
If there’s an easy way out of this, I don’t see it. The GOP leaders made a serious mistake and now the whole party is dealing with the consequences. It ain’t pretty.