TNR’s Eve Fairbanks wrote a great piece a couple of weeks ago about Rep. Don Sherwood (R), a conservative Republican 15-year incumbent representing Pennsylvania’s rural, traditionalist 10th district, despite a fairly serious sex scandal two years ago. The Mark Foley controversy casts Sherwood’s race in a whole new light.
In 2004, the world learned that the 60-something Sherwood not only was having an extramarital affair with a woman less than half his age, he was also accused of trying to strangle her. (The woman sued Sherwood for $5.5 million, but the matter was settled out of court.) Fairbanks’ article, however, noted that the controversy alone was not ruining Sherwood’s chances for re-election. As of September:
Fortunately for Sherwood, sleaze isn’t playing nearly as big in this election as was expected. In recent polls, voters rank “ethics in Washington” or “corruption in Washington” at the very bottom of the list of factors influencing their November decision. Some at the fair even seem to expect a mishap like a strangling to befall anyone who sets foot in Washington. “Oh, that?” says Marlene Fuhr, a lively blonde dressed in pink from head to toe, when I ask her about the alleged strangling. “He misbehaved in Washington, but they all do!”
Unfortunately for Sherwood, the issues are playing well. When asked about the allegations, one registered Republican who worked with Sherwood on the school board responds, “Yes, I was surprised, and disappointed. … [But] my greater disappointment with Don is the nearly visible puppet strings to the Bush administration.”
And, at the fair, outside a pink-and-white striped funnel cake stand, Bradford Barnes, a born-again Christian conservative from nearby Mehoopany, says, “I told Donnie, ‘I was kind of mad at you.’ … I’m mad that we’ve still got illegal immigration.” In any other race, Sherwood’s scandal would likely be the central joke. In this unusual year, it’s better to be an alleged strangler than a Bush puppet.
That was then. Now that everyone in America knows Mark Foley’s name and has seen his IMs, and the question of morality and ethics in Washington is a topic du jour, all of sudden controversies involving improprieties that were on the backburner have been moved back up. As Fairbanks explained this morning, “This is a new, fabulous side effect of FoleyGate: It could return totally unrelated ethics scandals to the table.”
Contrary to Democratic hopes that peaked during the Jack Abramoff affair, attacking the Republican “culture of corruption” has flopped all season. Ethically challenged legislators like California Representatives John Doolittle and Richard Pombo are safe for November, and, in summer polls, voters ranked corruption in Washington at the very bottom of the list of concerns affecting their decision in November. In Pennsylvania’s Tenth District, Sherwood’s sex scandal languished away from the public eye both because of the election’s billing as a referendum on Bush — and because of a sense that it just wasn’t, well, nice to go there. Most constituents I talked to at a county fair were offended that I might think they were so moralizing or dirty minded as to dwell on something like a mistress. And, despite the wealth of source material available in the scandal’s sensational details, [Naval Reserve commander-turned-professor Chris Carney, Sherwood’s Dem challenger]persistently declined to reference it other than obliquely, preferring to campaign on “the issues.”
But, thanks to Foley, the era of Victorian decorum is over, and it is showing in the Tenth District. Carney’s new line of attack blasts Sherwood for his planned fundraisers with the now-tainted House Majority Leader Boehner and Speaker Dennis Hastert–and draws an implicit comparison between the sins of Foley and of Sherwood: “Holding happy hour fundraisers with people who cover-up the cyber-molestation of children should be below even the questionable morals of Don Sherwood,” a press release says. “Don Sherwood has already brought Washington’s values back to the district”–that is, the values of liars and sex-offenders.
I’d take issue with Fairbanks’ description of the Doolittle and Pombo races, but otherwise, I think the analysis is spot-on. Just a few weeks ago, cynical and jaded voters weren’t terribly concerned about a “culture of corruption” because they assumed it was just the way DC operated. Now, these concerns are front-page news and the number one water-cooler discussion in the country.
For his part, Sherwood, in light of the Foley mess, is panicking — and begging voters to forgive him and give him another chance. It may not work; recent polls show Chris Carney pulling ahead.
I suspect this won’t be limited to Pennsylvania’s 10th. Voters, confronted with a scandal that repulses them, are interested anew in congressional scruples, and noting that it’s an area with which the Republicans are having some trouble. Okay, more than some.
As Fairbanks put it, “Foley will give other, non-sex-related scandals a lift, too…. Rather than just being a flare-up that dies down, the post-Foley season could see a releasing of all sorts of attacks that weren’t considered kosher or relevant pre-Foley — and turn that list of voters’ concerns going into November on its head.”