Then came the revelations about the truly majestic criminality of Jack Abramoff, who has confessed to fleecing millions from the Indian tribes who hired him to lobby for their casinos, and scattering overseas trips, lavish dinners and similar expensive favors among his Congressional cronies -- not always, but usually, Republicans. (His sidekick, Michael Scanlon, has also pleaded guilty to such behavior.) The indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., for perjury in the quite different matter of leaking the identity of a CIA agent, hasn't helped either, though neither Congress nor corruption was involved there.
It all adds up to a royal mess, and you can be sure the voters have noticed it. In a two-party system like ours, there is only one thing they can do to clean things up -- "throw the rascals out."
And Republican strategists had better not console themselves with the thought that the House of Representatives has been so gerrymandered by state legislators of both parties that only about 15 seats out of the whole 435 are actually "in play." When the American people, in their collective majesty, decide to change horses, little details like that tend to get trampled in the rush.
Is there anything the Republicans can do, at this late date, to save their necks? Give them credit for trying. They have already elected an attractive new House majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, to replace Tom "the Hammer" DeLay (who himself has been indicted for campaign finance shenanigans by a vengeful Democratic prosecutor in Texas). And they are talking about reforming various bad habits, such as "earmarks," that Congressmen of both parties have fallen into. But they need to make some really dramatic changes, if they expect to impress the voters. And an even more robust economy, and some really good news from Iraq, wouldn't hurt either. The peril to the GOP in Congress is serious, and time is short.