Action in the blogosphere is heating up as plotters for Republican and Democratic House leaders are intent on influencing the chatter.

Watch for House GOP leaders to host a “bloggers row” today in the Capitol. A handful of bloggers whom a spokesman for the majority leader’s office, Kevin Madden, said are vocal on fiscal issues have been invited. Members will be encouraged to drop by for interviews.

This GOP blogging strategy emerges as the caucus grapples internally over how to contain spending in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina-Rita disasters. GOP budget hawks took their complaints about spending without offsets public, and House leaders were forced to put a priority on fiscal containment.

The dissent is a little more out in the open because the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has “shaken up the leadership,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff.

The fault lines that always exist among Republicans are “on public display a little quicker” because of the DeLay-related forced temporary reorganization in the House, McInturff told reporters yesterday at a breakfast briefing sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

Those schisms now a little more obvious are between religious and economic conservatives, budget balancers and tax cutters, and, just emerging, immigration hard-liners and accommodaters.

DeLay’s stepping down as majority leader “took enormous pressure off the caucus,” McInturff said.

House Democrats who are hammering away at their GOP rivals using the “culture of corruption” theme may find the scandal accusations do little to change the minds of voters in contested congressional districts next year. People in McInturff’s focus groups tend to believe both political parties have ethics problems. In general, these voters are “not happy with anything right now.”

Invited bloggers include Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush/GOP Bloggers; Marc Ambinder, National Journal; Pat Cleary, National Association of Manufacturers; Tim Chapman, townhall.com; Ian Schwartz, politicalteen.com; William Beutler, Blogometer; and Eric Pfeiffer, Beltway Buzz.

On the Democratic side, e-mail gremlins forwarded a memo on decorum reportedly written by Republicans to the offices of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

The memo came from the majority on the House Rules Committee, which runs the Parliamentary Outreach Program and classes to help train members on House procedures.

This led Demos to craft their own response, distributed to Democratic-friendly blogs, titled “Abuse of Power” update.

Under a section called “Class Materials and grades”: “Please purchase industrial strength ear plugs to prevent the American people or House Democrats when they chant ‘shame, shame, shame’ on the House floor.”

• DeLay beat. DeLay was scheduled to headline a reception yesterday for Rep. Mike Conway (R-Texas) and, continuing with his PR blitz, is to guest this morning on Tony Snow’s Fox radio show.

Keyed to DeLay’s expected Friday arraignment in Texas, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is readying a new round of attacks to go out tomorrow against GOP members who contributed to DeLay’s legal defense fund.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it