Foley Destroys GOP October Strategy: 'National Security' Replaced with 'Moral Impurity' 
1. Will the Foley affair affect individual Republican members of Congress and Republican challengers? The immediate answer is that it already has. The President's aggressive campaign on national security and terrorism was a benefit to Republicans. Its sudden termination because of the Foley affair is a negative. The national conversation has already changed, blunting all the momentum Republicans were supposed to have nationally as Congress adjourned and the October campaign season began. Instead of discussing terrorism, Republican House leaders are defending themselves against charges that they covered up Foley's activities. The more complicated answer follows further below.2. Blunted momentum is only the beginning of the GOP's problems. As of this writing, there does not appear to be any smoking gun suggesting a cover-up of illegal activity, but things still look bad simply because House Republican leaders did know something, and the public will be unhappy with the fact that they did not cut Foley loose immediately, even though they had no evidence of illegal activity.
The fact is, Foley was reluctant to run for re-election because of pressure over his homosexuality. He was reportedly considering two private-sector jobs already, after the White House had panned him as a Florida Senate candidate, reasoning that he could not win statewide. But National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) talked a reluctant Foley into staying. Naturally, Reynolds, as the campaign chairman, wants all incumbents to stay in the House and to minimize open seats. Foley filed as a candidate in Florida on May 8 of this year, after Reynolds and other Republican leaders had been made aware of the e-mails by the page's congressional sponsor, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), in April. It would have been a good time to ease Foley out, because his district is solidly Republican enough that another candidate could have carried it easily.
