Jim Colby, the openly gay Republican congressman from Arizona, says Foley’s predatory sexual harassment started in 2001. Kirk Fordham, former staffer to Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, traces it back to 2003. Republican House member John Shimkus says it began a year ago, although he didn’t bother to tell anybody on the Page Board. And Reynolds himself says the problem was fingered last spring. That’s more than an enough anecdotal evidence for voters who have concluded that Hastert knew there was a problem and stood idly by. At the very least, common sense says Hastert should have removed Foley from his leadership positions on the Page Board and the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.
Republicans will get their comeuppance this fall. But the trick for the GOP is to turn this short-run political setback into a long-run positive strategy. The starting point must be a change in the House leadership and a retooling of a tired old message.
In fact, to a good extent it has been a message of failure.
Hastert & Co. failed to abolish the cash-for-legislative-favors scam of budget earmarks running amok. They failed to put in clear rules to curb budgetary spending. They struck out on Social Security reform and savings-account expansion. They did extend the investor tax cuts, but they failed to reform either the corporate or personal tax codes, where wholesale changes could boost worker incomes and lessen wage inequality. (The corporate tax should be abolished altogether.) The bust-the-bank prescription-drug plan had Hastert’s fingerprints all over it. Ditto for the congressional slide toward trade protectionism. Ditto for a 700-mile fence between the U.S. and Mexico. Rather than true immigration reform, we have the Buchanan-Tancredo hate-line on immigration -- a.k.a., a national election loser.
The single strongest most-likely Republican voter bloc is the investor class, where shareholders should be encouraged to get out and vote for tax cuts, limited government, a strong economy, and a roaring stock market. It’s not too late to mobilize this group and at least shave the Democratic vote margin on November 7. But it takes a message to motivate voters.
Mr. Hastert, move out of the way. It’s time for change.