House Speaker Dennis Hastert may yet survive calls for his resignation ahead of the elections, but mounting Republican scandals may help the voters to retire him anyway.
Hastert, an Illinois Republican, has been attempting to claw his way out of the predicament created by revelations that former Rep. Mark Foley, of Florida, was sending lurid messages to boys in the House page program.
It’s been alleged that Hastert’s top staff knew about the messages years before they were made public.
Even before the scandal broke, Democrats were confident that they could retake the House for the first time since 1994. The public appears to be weary of the war in Iraq and President Bush.
On Friday, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, admitting that he took bribes from one-time super-lobbyist Jack Abramhoff. Ohio, which went for Bush in 2004 and helped ensure his victory, is now giving fits to the Republicans. Several local scandals have rocked state Republicans.
Late last week, The Associated Press reported the FBI is investigating whether Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., steered contracts to his daughter. Pennsylvania is another state where Republican prospects seem dim.
President Bush appeared at a fundraiser in Chicago last week and once again supported the embattled Hastert.
“You know, he’s not one of these Washington politicians who spewsa lot of hot air,” Bush said. “He just gets the job done.”
But an endorsement from Bush might well be worth as much as it once was: Democrats have mounted formidable challenges in Congressional races by nationalizing them and focusing on the President.
The scandals around Hastert have emboldened the Democrats to challenge him on his home turf: The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sent out a fundraising appeal to 3 million donors in support of John Laesch, a former Naval intelligence officer who is running for Hastert’s central Illinois seat.
Kerry carried Illinois by a wide margin in 2004 and the Republican Party in that state is at its lowest political ebb since the Great Depression.
Laesch may be a long shot against the sitting speaker. But the “Republican Revolution” that put Hastert on the path to power also saw a sitting speaker lose his seat to a long-shot challenger.
