The Hill: "A bad year for the party just got a whole lot worse"

[Rose Siding]

A bad year just got worse for the Republican Party when Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was indicted yesterday.

Since House Republicans slightly expanded their majority in 2004, they have run into one political stumbling block after another, and DeLay’s indictment is just the latest bout of intrigue that has created a political climate not seen since 1994, when Republicans ended the Democrats’ 40-year rule of the House and won control of the Senate.

“We’re going through a rough patch,” said a rank-and-file Republican lawmaker. “I’m more worried about Bush’s poll numbers. The concern about DeLay is: Does it disrupt our internal unity and focus?”
....
On issue after issue — ethics, Terri Schiavo, the demise of Social Security privatization, charges of influence peddling and corruption, a rising death toll in the war in Iraq, rising gasoline prices, the govern-ment’s sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina and the sale of stock from Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) trust fund — Republicans have been caught flatfooted and appeared beleaguered at times.
....
“The issues that the values voters were energized by and helped expand Republican control, those issues have not yet been delivered upon,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/092905/party.html

[Beetwasher]

1. Don't Worry, Somehow, "Miraculously", They Will Gain Seats in '06

They will defy all the polls and claim it's the "silent majority" speaking who are fed up w/ the witch hunts of good, god fearing Repubs and of course all those hoardes of invisible evangelical voters. The exit polls, of course, will be corrected once again after the election to conform w/ the results. :eyes:

[woodsprite]

2. Wouldn't be a miracle - would be a manipulation. n/t

[Beetwasher]

3. Yeah, Sorta My Point

Fixed to put quotes around "miraculously".