Sleaze and scandal did Republicans as much damage as the war in Iraq

THE Republican Party took a beating in the mid-term American elections this week, even though the economy was possibly never better.

The Republicans were beaten comprehensively, but not actually hammered, seeing that they lost control of the Senate by a proverbial whisker, especially in the states of Montana and Virginia. If they had carried either, they would have retained control of the Senate.

In such close races it is absurd to attribute the defeat to any single issue because any number of factors may have made the difference between winning and losing. The war in Iraq has become distinctly unpopular and the ratings of George Bush’s White House performance have grown particularly negative. As a result, most of the party’s more serious candidates did not wish to be seen with him.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did not want Bush’s help in California and the Republican candidate to succeed Jeb Bush as governor of Florida snubbed the president in the final days of his campaign. But both men won, whereas senators Conrad Burns in Montana and James Talent in Missouri both lost very close races after the president campaigned personally for them.

For instance, 91% of those who voted for Talent’s opponent, Claire McCaskill, told an exit poll they strongly disapproved of Bush’s performance, and 92% of those who voted for the Democrat in Montana said the same thing.

In the other closest race, in Virginia, 95% of those who voted for the Democrat Jim Webb strongly disapproved of the president’s performance.

Bush wasn’t running, but he was a major factor. The Republicans were also plagued by a number of scandals. For three weeks in October a scandal caused by Mark Foley sending highly inappropriate messages to teenage Congressional pageboys dominated the campaign, as it became apparent that Republican leaders had been warned for years but took no action.

Exit polls conducted on election day found that 54% of voters disapproved of the way the party leadership handled the Foley affair. A number of the Republican losses could be attributed directly to this, including the loss of Foley’s seat in what should have been a safe Republican district. Foley withdrew too late to be replaced on the ballot, so Republicans were urged to vote for him on the understanding that Joe Negron would take his seat, if Foley won.

With the punch card voting system that became notorious with the hanging chads in 2000, a Republican spindoctor came up with a novel slogan —“Punch Foley”.

It almost worked, as he came within 2% of winning.

Irish-Americans have traditionally been linked with the Democratic Party, but in recent decades, as they became more affluent and moved to the suburbs, many have become active Republicans. In addition to Foley, there have been a few distinct Irish names involved in the scandals.

Sue Kelly lost her seat in New York for not being more aware of Foley’s conduct when she was in the chair of the pageboy board from 1999 to 2001. John Sweeney of New York lost out after his wife called the police and accused him of knocking her about. Rick O’Donnell of Colorado was citing the need for ethics reform as his main goal when it was disclosed that CBS television paid for a weekend for him and his girlfriend in Panama while he was director of his state’s commission on higher education, with which CBS was doing business at the time. O’Donnell said the Panama trip was just a harmless weekend adventure. He also admitted accepting a trip to Ireland to talk about education reform.

“It was not a pleasure trip,” O’Donnell said. “It was not fun.” Maybe Fáilte Ireland is just as happy that he lost out. That’s not the kind of advertising we need — telling the world that it was no fun going to Ireland.

Jim Ryun, whom many people will remember as a world record-breaking miler in the 1960s, lost out in Kansas because he was a neighbour of Foley and hosted fundraisers for him. Ryun, who describes himself as a fundamentalist Christian, reportedly spoke in tongues at a political rally during his first campaign in 1996.

Don Sherwood, a self-styled family values conservative, lost out in Pennsylvania. When neighbours called police over a commotion in Sherwood’s apartment, a woman with whom Sherwood had been having an affair accused him of trying to choke her. She sued, and he settled out of court for a reputed $500,000, but he denied assaulting her. He said his wife and children had forgiven him.

“Should you forgive me,” he told voters in an election ad, “you can count on me to keep on fighting hard for you and your family.” Too many apparently did not forgive him because he, too, got the boot.

Several people were linked with a lobbying scandal involving Jack Abramoff who was dolling out the dosh.

EARLIER this year Tom DeLay of Texas, the House Majority Leader, had to resign over the scandal. It was too late to get his name off the ballot, so the Republicans ran a write-in candidate, but she had little chance with a complicated name like Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.

Clay Shaw lost his seat in Florida over his connections with DeLay, while Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio was convicted of corruption in connection with Abramoff. Ney only resigned his seat last week and the Democrats won it on Tuesday.

Ohio was rocked by a somewhat innocuous scandal by Irish standards. It involved Governor Bob Taft, a scion of one of the most famous Republican families. His great grandfather, WH Taft, was President of the United States and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the early part of the 20th century. Bob’s grandfather, after whom he was called, was Senate Majority Leader in 1953 and his uncle, WH Taft III, was US ambassador to Ireland in the 1950s.

Governor Taft’s career is ending in disgrace. His popularity plummeted to 6.5%, the lowest recorded for a sitting American politician. The crime — for which he was fined $4,000 — was failing to report gifts of golf games and match tickets.

He’s lucky he did not go to Manchester as one of Bertie’s pals.

Three other Republican Congressmen, Charles Taylor of North Carolina, Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota and Richard Pombo of California, lost their seats over receiving contributions from Abramoff, while Randy Cunningham of California was sentenced to eight years in a jail for corruption.

Republican incumbent Curt Weldon lost in Pennsylvania following a recent FBI raid on his daughter’s home after he was alleged to have used his Congressional position to help her company to get lobbying contracts. All this sleaze and corruption has come against the backdrop of the Republicans promising to clean up Washington.

Remember how the Clinton presidency was mired for years in Whitewater and the Lewinsky affair — none of which amounted to much.

With Democrats poised to take over both houses of Congress in the new year, the real investigations are only about to begin. There has been so much money floating around, especially in connection with Afghanistan and Iraq, that nobody should be surprised at what’s to come.

The White House has already shown signs of panic by throwing a bone to the Democratic hounds in the form of Donald Rumsfeld. This is only likely to wet their appetites. As Al Jolson put it, “you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet!”