Republicans have seized on the salacious stories of a federal agency’s spending spree in Las Vegas and of Secret Service agents partying with Colombian prostitutes to punctuate the party’s central argument against President Obama, Democrats and big government: The federal bureaucracy is bloated by waste, corruption and fraud.
The twin scandals, erupting nearly simultaneously, help put a human face on issues at the heart of the Republican Party’s push to downsize government, making it easier for the party to convey its message to voters. Ronald Reagan benefited in a similar way in 1976 when he dubbed a Chicago woman busted for welfare fraud a “welfare queen” and used her example to paint the entire welfare system as corrupt, said Craig Smith, a speechwriter for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
