Over the weekend, much press was given to Chris Shays' denouncements of Tom DeLay.
Rick Santorum also got some great press coverage suggesting he had distanced himself from DeLay, even though he didn't. All Santorum did was say he didn't think DeLay had done anything wrong, but that he should provide an to answer the charges against him. Wow, how courageous.
Now, Lincoln Chafee becomes the latest Republican to criticize DeLay.
It doesn't take a genius to see what these three men have in common - they are all running for re-election in blue states in 2006. SO WHY ARE WE HELPING THEM WIN?
Some people on the Democratic side of the ledger are so eager to publicize any bad news about DeLay that they are aiding and abetting the disingenuous efforts of blue-state Republicans to distance themselves from DeLay's scandals. For example, the DCCC weblog reposts Congressional Quarterly's take verbatim:
A second Senate Republican facing a difficult election next year suggested Monday that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay needs to do more to address ethics accusations leveled against him recently.
"We've got to uphold the highest standards of legality and ethics,'' Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., said Monday. "You can't have your leader under a cloud. It makes it difficult to run."
Rick Santorum, R-Pa., also has called for DeLay, R-Texas, to give the public a better explanation of ethics questions raised about his travel and about his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Santorum faces a 2006 re-election campaign against a well-funded Democrat with a proven track record in statewide races - state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr.
In Rhode Island, two politically experienced Democrats - Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown and former state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse - appear ready to fight for the chance to take on Chafee next year.
Political analysts say it is prudent for Republicans running for re-election in 2006 to anticipate attacks from Democrats if they fail to speak out against DeLay.
I have highlighted the last paragraph because THIS is the meme we need to oppose, every chance we get. How can we allow anyone to pretend that blue-state Republicans can hide the fact that they belong to the party of George W. Bush and Tom DeLay, simply by "speaking out" against DeLay?
This so-called "speaking out" is politics at its most transparent. Shays has tried to play both sides of the street, but he at least opposed DeLay's secret effort to change the House ethics rules; Santorum and Chafee, on the other hand, have done NOTHING to oppose the corruption within their own party, until it started showing up in the newspapers. Their feigned disappointment is phony, phony, phony, and we need to point that out repeatedly. "Rats off a sinking ship" would be an apt metaphor. "Speaking out" is not.
Matt Yglesias has the right take:
DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY. I continue to have concerns about the Democratic strategy surrounding the Tom DeLay matter. What, for example, is the DCCC doing trumpeting efforts by vulnerable Republicans to distance themselves from DeLay? They should be emphasizing everyone's ties with DeLay. Rick Santorum is just the Senate version of DeLay. And I'm totally unimpressed with Chris Shays's conversion to the anti-DeLay cause. Abandoning your friends when they get in hot water shows you're a coward, not a principled and independent thinker.
Near as I can tell, Shays had nothing but good things to say about DeLay when the bad deeds were going down. Switching sides once they came to light in public is a silly stunt, not something liberals should be highlighting. Do we really think GOP members of Congress had absolutely no idea what was going on? Didn't Shays vote for all the big pieces of pay-to-play legislation? At a minimum, folks who want to distance themselves from DeLay with cheap ex post facto talk should find it really, really, really hard to get that message out. Liberals have no business helping them. This isn't Social Security, where winning the policy battle is overwhelmingly important. It would be nice to get DeLay out of the House, but Majority Leader Roy Blunt is clearly a worse outcome than DeLay sitting in the Minority Leader's chair.
Victory is not measured by getting rid of DeLay. Victory means taking back the House and Senate in 2006. The Democratic reaction to Chafee's comments should be laughter - pure, derisive laughter at his pitiful attempt to pretend Tom DeLay doesn't represent his party. Tom DeLay LEADS his party.
There is a NATIONAL theme to be exploited here - not only the corruption that pervades the Republican Party, but the fact that Republicans who are up in 2006 are suddenly having crises of conscience, while the rest continue to rally around DeLay. We need to say this over and over until the media gets it and begins to repeat it. Do not even suggest that these guys have an out.