Politics: Foley's Folly

The release of emails and instant messages containing lurid communications between U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and certain male Senate pages, and Foley's subsequent resignation have been big news. Foley's actions are certainly disturbing and merit national scorn. Thankfully, there have not been any reports of sexual relations between Foley and any of the pages (yet?) but his actions that have been reported are still reprehensible and a breach of trust making his resignation the only appropriate response. Criminal prosecution may be soon to follow, and I wouldn't be surprised if additional facts continue to come out, since it appears that each day produces new revelations.

So, what is likely to be the fallout from the Foley scandal? Well, there are three obvious potential effects: 1) Foley's seat will go to the Democratic candidate Tim Mahoney; 2) Dennis Hastert will be forced to resign as House Speaker; 3) The scandal flips other congressional races nationally to Democrats, perhaps resulting in a Democratic house majority.

Regarding the first question, I fully expect Tim Mahoney to defeat substitute candidate Joe Negron (even though Negron is a solid candidate in my opinion). I think that local voters will want to punish Foley and the Republican party for this scandal, making it very difficult for Negron to win. Plus, Foley's name will appear on the ballot as required by Florida law, and I can't imagine a majority of the voters putting a check by that guy's name.

The second question is whether Dennis Hastert will be forced to resign his speakership. The key issue here is whether Hastert knew, or should have suspected, that Foley was having inappropriate contact with congressional pages. If so, he needs to resign. I am inclined to think that Hastert probably should have had his suspicions raised when he was notified about some of Foley's messages. His excuse that he was asked by the page's family not to go public is insufficient simply because he owed it to the rest of the pages to make sure that nothing shady was going on. However, I do not think Hastert will resign unless it can be shown that he knew about the more salacious instant messages (which is unlikely) because of the political ramifications of such an act. It would be a tacit admission of guilt and serve to admit that the entire Republican leadership is somehow culpable for Foley's act. This would be incredibly damaging politically, and thus I don't see it happening. As for my personal thoughts, I think Hastert failed to show strong leadership and wisdom and also acted calculatingly for purposes of avoiding a scandal. Even if he does not resign before the election, I think the Republicans should seek a new minority leader after the elections.

The third question is whether this will be a tipping point that results in the Democrats taking back the House of Representatives. I think that it will result in just that. This scandal is going to depress Evangelical turnout sufficiently in some close races, and I wouldn't be surprised if a decent number of Republican voters decide to punish the party and vote for a Democratic candidate. Plus, moderate swing voters will also be rightly appalled by the scandal and be more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate in the voting booth. In the end, it will be impossible to know if the Foley scandal will be what tips the House to the Democrats, but if it happens rest assured that the whole episode certainly didn't help Republican candidates.