Foleygate, Revisisted

I've been waiting for the whole Foleygate thing to settle down before commenting on what I thought the fallout wil be. Things were moving so fast with one new revelation after another, frankly even I couldn't keep up. If you want the details I would suggestion visiting Gateway Pundit for the low down (he's got all the inside stuff.)

Enough time has passed and the results are coming in, and they don't look good. That being said, I still think there is more at play here than simply reading the polls. I've picked up a vibe from conservatives that the whole episode has generated some motivation among the base. I wouldn't expect that to show up in the polls, so I'm still taking them with a grain of salt. The polls, I think, reflect the general attitude of people such as those that work in my office. They seem to get their news from The Daily Show and of course are clueless about the details of the story. For instance, they think that Denny Hastert knew of the lurid IMs, when in reality it was the emails Hastert knew about. That's probably neither here nor there, because I don't think any of them vote Republican anyway. But I do believe they probably reflect the general population represented in the polls.

So, the bottom line is that it certainly has caused some problems, but I believe there is still time to motivate the base that so desperately wants to be motivated. The story seems to have dropped a little too early and events such as North Korea's nuclear test pushed the Foley story off the front pages and reminded people of the dangerous world we live in (damn that Karl Rove is good.) Remember Gary Condit? He was front page news on September 10, 2001. Enough said. Also, another reality not reflected in the polls is the superiority of the GOPs Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort. It is time to see how effective Ken Mehlman's machine can be.

Time and events will tell, but there is no doubt that it'll be tough going for the next few weeks.