Gone Daddy Gone

Well, it looks like the GOP have given up on a member of the Foley scandal. Tom Reynolds has now been put on the dead man walking list. From the Chicago Sun Times:

A Republican campaign operative with a reputation for accuracy has put Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, on the list of incumbent Republicans who are ''gone'' -- that is, sure to lose their seats on Nov. 7.

Reynolds' prominence as a Republican leader who was responsible for handling Rep. Mark Foley of Florida has dropped him 15 points below his Democratic opponent in his supposedly safe upstate New York district, according to a poll taken by John Zogby after the scandal broke.

Reynolds was slumping even before the Foley affair made news. Republicans and Democrats alike try to pick their campaign chairmen from House members who do not have to defend their own seats in Congress. However, industrialist Jack Davis, a self-financed former Republican, is running a vigorous campaign against Reynolds in his second try at defeating him.

When the NRCC chairman is on the that list, well, let's just say election night is going to be a long sad night for the GOP. I've been through enough of those to know it sucks.

NRCC Cash Coming To Town

The NRCC has just released $7.8 million in expenditures for November's election and nearly a million of those dollars are going to be spent in Ohio. Steve Chabot will receive $201,262 for issue ads and phone banking, Deb Pryce will get $206,650 for issue ads, and Joy Padgett will be funded by a whopping $552,043 for ads, mailings, and phone banking.

You may recall that the NRCC has steadfastly refused to return the $100,000 that Mark Foley contributed to their coffers and are actively seeking to gain control of the $2.7 million that remains in his campaign account.

As for the head of the NRCC, it seems that we may not have Tom Reynolds to kick around much longer, a new poll out today shows him trailing Jack Davis 48-33. It is a Zogby poll, but no poll is ever off that much. Reynold had been considered a shoe-in prior to the Foley scandal.

Kirk Fordham Shown The Door

Well, it wasn't long after Kirk Fordham, the chief of staff for republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, went blabbing to the press that he was shown the door by Reynolds. The republican smear machine also started annoynomously telling ABC that Fordham in fact begged republican leaders not to tell the page board about Mark Foley's dalliances. Fordham's people told ABC that he is being used as a scapegoat.

There is something smelly about this chapter of the scandal and it is pretty difficult to get a read on it. One of two possibilities is probably the truth.

Perhaps the smearers are right. Kirk Fordham was a long time advisor to Foley and would have been in the perfect position to know of his former boss' predilections. Following his tenure with Foley's office, he left to take a chief of staff job for the head of the page board, Tom Reynolds. It is the perfect position to protect his former boss from, if he still held allegiance to Foley, which he apparently did as it has been reported that Fordham advised Foley over the last weekend.

On the other hand, Fordham is possibly telling the truth and would have been in the best position to get resolution to the matter and possibly told Reynolds and other republican leadership to do something about it which they did not.

It is however, irrelevant to the overall matter at hand, because whichever account is correct, both agree that Fordham told the republican leadership which did nothing about it. Whether Fordham pleaded or prodded does nothing to allow Denny Hastert to escape culpability on the matter as a whole. In fact, I'm not sure which version makes Hastert look worse.

Stay, Stay, Stay

So, what did Tom "I won't comment on this matter without my tiny tot human shields" Reynolds do when he first learned about Mark Foley's inappropriate contact with underage pages? Urge him to get counseling? Nope. Start an investigation? No way! Instead Reynolds urged Foley to run for another term. From the NY Post (Yea, I know):

In another stunning development, Robert Novak today reveals in his column - published in PostOpinion on Page 31 - that even after House GOP leaders knew that Foley had written an inappropriate e-mail to a 16-year-old former male page, they were still urging him to seek re-election.

Novak writes, "A member of the House leadership told me that Foley, under continuous political pressure because of his sexual orientation, was considering not seeking a seventh term this year but that Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), talked him into running."

So, the problem was going to go away and probably never come to the surface, but Reynolds talked Foley into coming back. I guess Reynold's eyes were just glazed over thinking about all that campaign cash Foley had on hand. Ain't that Karma a bitch!

Tom Reynolds

Tom Reynolds, one of the members of the House leadership who was in the know on the Foley dalliances held a press conference yesterday in which he used small children basically as human shields to keep reporters from asking questions that ought not be asked in front of children. Reporters asked Reynolds to send the children away to ask other questions, he refused, although that part isn't seen in this video. Watch it here.

This is beyond the pale even for this sordid matter. The tough talking republican party now just does not protect children, it actively uses them to hide behind for the sake of saving their own asses in the November election. This is truly the most pathetic thing I have ever seen in politics.