LA5 and NY26

[Mr. Morden]

The blogosphere is now buzzing about the fact that several Republican members of Congress knew about the Foley emails for months, and, at least according to some, didn't act on it with any kind of urgency.  The Hotline gives a lot of background on this:

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/

Among those who knew are Rodney Alexander and Tom Reynolds.  Will there be any political fallout for them, specifically, that could be serious enough for them to lose their seats?

I don't know anything about the LA5 race, other than the fact that Alexander is a party switcher who was first elected as a Democrat four years ago, so his district can't be *that* heavily Republican.  Does anyone have any info on this race?  (Also, according to the rumors I mentioned last week, Alexander may very well have had discussions with the Democratic leadership about switching *back* to the Dems, depending on the outcome of the election.)

Most prognosticators hadn't rated NY26 very high on the list of possible Dem pickups.  However:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M._Reynolds

"A poll released on September 28th, by Survey USA, shows Tom Reynolds leading Jack Davis by a margin of 45% to 43% with the Green party candidate receiving 8% support and 4% undecided.  However, a court has just ruled that the Green party did not submit enough valid signatures, so their candidate will be stricken from the ballot."

Even if the SUSA poll was off, couple that with the Green Party candidate getting knocked off the ballot, plus Foleygate, and maybe Reynolds doesn't look nearly as solid as he did just a few days ago.

[MarkWarner08]

Alexander is safer than bumblebee hiding under a spider's web -- please excuse that pathetic attempt to channel Dan Rather's Texas wit.

I agree with you that Reynolds is in trouble. The best part of Jack Davis's self-funding campaign is that the DCCC doesn't have to spend a cent on this race.

[socaldem]

NY-26 has definitely become more interesting.

By all accounts, Reynolds is actually a fairly adept political operator.  With him distracted in defense of his seat and, possibly, losing, the RNCC is going to be in even bigger trouble than they already are.

The only problem is that, though, Jack Davis is a formidable candidate, he's a little too conservative for my tastes.  He's a true protectionist/industrialist old school GOPer...

In LA-05 Alexander is, of course, safe for now.  I'd like to see his seat redistricted, though, to create a minority-opportunity district that picks up Baton Rouge and St. Tammany Parrishes so that the Katrina refugees get some representation.

Its interesting that with Tom Reynolds facing a serious contest, the North Country's Rep. McHugh will be the only GOP representative in NY not facing a serious challenge.  Wouldn't it be great if Dems swept NY, CT & Western PA (06, 07, 08, 10)!

[Deano963]

Don't forget Denny Hastert. He knew as well. This could wind up costing the republicans as many as three seats.

[minionofmidas]

Alexander's first election, campaigning as a (not all that) Conservative Democrat was a fluke in what was supposed to be Republicans' second-safest seat in Louisiana, only made possible by the Cajun Primary and the extremely dirty infighting between the three major Republican candidates.

I still haven't quite understood why he went Republican... maybe he just felt he had to do that to become a congressman for life.

[Adlai Stevenson]

LA-5 voted 59% for Bush in 2004.  I don't know if Alexander's opponent will get any traction due to the Foley issue.  There was also an article a week ago or so that said two Democratic-turned-Republican House members were willing to switch back if the Democrats won control of Congress.  Alexander, Virgil Goode of Virginia, Ralph Hall of Texas and Nathan Deal of Georgia are all members of the GOP who were elected as Democrats. 

[Mr. Morden]

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Mara Liasson explicitly singled out Reynolds as being made vulnerable for reelection due to his involvement in Foleygate--the first time I've seen someone in the media make that point.  She also said that Hastert and Reynolds were "at war with each other" over the question of who knew what when about Foley.

Also, if Alexander is indeed considering switching back to the Dems, then Hastert may be shooting himself in the foot by scapegoating Alexander's staff on Foleygate:

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/09/speaker_hastert.html

"The Clerk asked to see the text of the email. Congressman Alexander's office declined citing the fact that the family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible and simply wanted the contact to stop. The Clerk asked if the email exchange was of a sexual nature and was assured it was not. Congressman Alexander's Chief of Staff characterized the email exchange as over-friendly."

Translation: "Don't blame *me* for this.  Alexander's people said the emails were just 'over-friendly', not 'sexual'."

[Mr. Morden]

Reynolds' involvement in Foleygate is getting picked up by the local media:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061001/NEWS01/610010326/1002/NEWS

which also makes note of the fact that Davis's campaign is already going after Reynolds on this.

Also, Ben Smith of the New York Daily News has picked up on the fact that Reynolds donated $5000 to Foley *after* he found out about the emails, and Foley's campaign also received $100,000 from the NRCC (chaired by Reynolds) in July:

http://blogs.nydailynews.com/dailypolitics/archives/2006/09/reynolds_knew_b.php