Post Monday: Senior GOP strategists worry ethics will erode majority

[rawstory]

RAW STORY

After enlarging their majority two elections in a row, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races, the WASHINGTON POST's Mike Allen will report on Monday page ones, RAW STORY has learned.

Republicans have a 29-seat majority in the House, which they likely won't lose in the 2006 elections. But those among senior ranks of the party who spoke earlier in the year about breaking even in the midterm elections now speak of losses. If Democrats retake the House, Republican strategists tell the Post, it won't be until 2012.

Allen says senior Republicans now speak of "the DeLay effect," intimating ethics questions circling House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) have begun to hurt fellow party members, who face local coverage of their own trips and use of relatives on campaign payrolls.

Among those endangered, according to the Post, are at least two committee chairmen and several other senior members, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), House Administration Chairman Bob Ney (R-OH) and House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA). Congressional districts that traditionally have been safe for Republicans could become more competitive, GOP officials tell the post.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senior_GOP_strategists_begin_to_worry_ethics_scandals_will_erode_ma_06_05_2005_0811pm.html

(Sorry for the absurdly long links -- we're working on that.)

[Inland]

1. Well, how unfair is THAT?!?

Americans who by nature distrust government power are leery about the power mad, proto-fascist party.

[Newsjock]

2. The GOP's strategery for '06

Don't say I didn't warn you.

They will relentlessly pound, pound, and pound again about the Democrats' supposed lack of ethics, and by this time next year, polls will consistently show that a majority of Americans believe that Democrats in Congress are "less ethical" than Republicans.

They will be absolutely brazen about it.

Unless we are equally brazen, we lose.

[Erika]

3. W's war policies are turning some evangelicals off

and they are reuniting with the democrats. The GOP party is not looking good to working America and those of us who believe in the Golden Rule.

Maybe the lowness of the GOP ethic's will be the straw that broke the "elephant's" back.

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Other things are turning Evangelicals off

1. Environment - historically Evangelical progressives have had a "theory of the Commons" - "sacred trust" philosophy on environmental issues. The Rove - Falwell Axis has trashed that.

2. Stem Cell Research - Evangelical progressives are getting uneasy with the "Life Begins With a Gleam in Daddy's Eye" teachings of the Rove - Falwell Axis, especially since the Rove - Falwell Axis is selectively "Pro-Life" - that is they are "pro-Birth" but anti-stem cell research, anti-WIC, anti-Head Start, pro-Capital Punishment, and Pro-War.

3. Anti education and anti-science. As our scientific literacy sinks to the bottom of the industrialized world and our high multiplier jobs leave the US.

The perception among "Progressive" Evangelicals in my circle of friends -- the policies of the Rove - Falwell axis are not Christian and not Evangelical.

[Erika]

8. Good Post.

I believe it was Hillary who recently said this is the Lord's environment and our job is, as His steward, to respect and care for it. That's a far cry from the GOP "use it and abuse it" doctrine.

[saltpoint]

5. Even a hard-bitten realist might say the GOP will have to --

-- fight to keep several seats they might otherwise have taken for granted.

Which is fine with me. If we lose a race in 2006, let's at least make the other side play their best game. Short of that, we pick the seat up and shove the Rethugs out of committee chair posts. They've done plenty of damage as it is.

If the U.S. economy goes sour -- that is, worse than it already is -- the Rethugs get the blame, whether that's 100% fair or 90% fair or what. They control all 3 branches of the government and if things get worse economically, voters will turn our a few more GOP hacks.

Also fine with me.

[berni_mccoy]

6. WHAAA?

The Moral Majority having ETHICS Problems??? PULEASE...

:sarcasm: :rofl:

[Nancy Waterman]

7. Here is a story that shows Republican Family values and morals.

The world should hear it loud and clear. This is what makes policy these days.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050530&s=mcgarvey

From an article about the infamous Dr Hager, in The Nation:

"I don't think I was married even a full year before I realized that I had made a horrible mistake," Davis says. By her account, Hager was demanding and controlling, and the couple shared little emotional intimacy. "But," she says, "the people around me said, 'Well, you've made your bed, and now you have to lie in it.'" So Davis commenced with family making and bore three sons: Philip, in 1973; Neal, in 1977; and Jonathan, in 1979.

Sometime between the births of Neal and Jonathan, Hager embarked on an affair with a Bible-study classmate who was a friend of Davis's. A close friend of Davis's remembers her calling long distance when she found out: "She was angry and distraught, like any woman with two children would be. But she was committed to working it out."

Sex was always a source of conflict in the marriage. Though it wasn't emotionally satisfying for her, Davis says she soon learned that sex could "buy" peace with Hager after a long day of arguing, or insure his forgiveness after she spent too much money. "Sex was coinage; it was a commodity," she said. Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. "He would say, 'Oh, I didn't mean to have anal sex with you; I can't feel the difference,'" Davis recalls incredulously. "And I would say, 'Well then, you're in the wrong business.'"

By the 1980s, according to Davis, Hager was pressuring her to let him videotape and photograph them having sex. She consented, and eventually she even let Hager pay her for sex that she wouldn't have otherwise engaged in--for example, $2,000 for oral sex, "though that didn't happen very often because I hated doing it so much. So though it was more painful, I would let him sodomize me, and he would leave a check on the dresser," Davis admitted to me with some embarrassment. This exchange took place almost weekly for several years.

[Erika]

9. How sick and co-dependent. n/t