Is former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) the straw that broke the elephant’s back?

The fight for control of the House already leaned slightly against the GOP, but Pagegate further threatens its House majority, embarrasses and drives a wedge between House leaders, and could spiral into even larger electoral troubles for Republicans.

As for Florida 16, it is now another seat on a growing list that Republicans could have safely defended but for scandal. Republicans cannot win the seat, even with their new candidate Joe Negron. This district has a modest Republican lean; President Bush won 54 percent of the vote in 2004, but Florida election law requires that at this late date, Foley’s name must remain on the ballot, even though votes for him will be recorded for Negron. This is not a winning scenario.

If Foley, Tom DeLay (Texas) and Bob Ney (Ohio) had stepped aside in early spring, Republicans would be favored to win all of their seats.  Now they are likely Democratic takeovers. Add to this Jim Kolbe’s Arizona seat, where Randy Graf won the primary against national Republicans’ wishes, as well as open seats in Colorado and Iowa and at least two Indiana seats, and you have eight seats that Democrats should gain. This means that Democrats only need seven from a sizeable list of very tight races to put them over the top.

More damaging than the endangered Foley seat is the turmoil among House leaders.  From a gang that usually displays complete unity, there is a lot of finger pointing and saving of one’s own skin going on.  Most endangered in the election is NRCC chairman Thomas Reynolds (R-N.Y.), who already faced a stiff challenge in his modestly Republican district.  His seat is now up for grabs, which explains his rather vociferous disagreements with Hastert, even to the point of noting that he had informed his “supervisor” (Hastert) about the Foley emails and that Hastert had assured him that it was being taken care of.

Additional finger-pointing has gone on between Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Hastert. And it is not every day that the conservative Washington Times calls for the resignation of a Republican speaker.

Pagegate isn’t going away soon. Scandals have a lifecycle, and this one is clearly in its infancy. Even if the story does not change fundamentally, we are still likely to see more emails, more instances of leaders and members who knew something about the matter, and possibly more revelations from pages, interns, and staff about other inappropriate activities from other staff or members.

Just at the time where Republicans were poised to hammer home national security issues and concentrate on their ground turnout game, they will instead be forced to address an embarrassment in the their own ranks and charges of cover-up or incompetence on the part of their leaders. Hindsight is 20/20, but it is surely a sign of how polarized the House is that Republicans did not include Democrat Dale Kildee of the page board in a meeting to warn Foley to curb his behavior. Unfortunately for the GOP, this means that all of the political blame lies with them.

Before this scandal, Republicans had to face strong negatives on their president and party’s performance, but despite the serious Abramoff and Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandals, the theme of how Republicans govern in Congress has not had much traction. Pagegate threatens to raise the issue of Republicans not being able to run their own House (which reminds of similar charges made against Democrats in 1992 and 1994).

A worst-case scenario could lead to leadership shakeups, dampen Republican turnout and have broader effects on House and Senate races.

They say that elephants never forget. Will voters?

Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.