The Power of Publishing

"There was no crisis, but if Warner, who has three teenage daughters, had stayed in the race, he would have been signing up for at least 15 more months of dialing into his other life from minivans and hotels with dodgy bedspreads and mystery odors. Running for office is a brutal, dehumanizing slog."

How ugly is the Foley fallout getting? The New Republic's Michael Crowley names names:

"One gay activist with a blog could single-handedly out dozens of Republicans. That's just what a D.C.-based blogger named Michael Rogers began doing around the time of the 2004 congressional gay marriage debate. One early casualty was Virginia GOP Representative Ed Schrock, a rock-ribbed Navy veteran who had co-sponsored the Federal Marriage Amendment. Days after Rogers, working from his apartment in Washington's gay-friendly Adams Morgan neighborhood, posted messages allegedly recorded on a gay phone-sex line by the representative, Schrock retired. Rogers also targeted a slew of congressional staffers, including Robert Traynham, communications director to Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who had bizarrely lumped gay marriage with 'man-on-dog' sex. Santorum was ultimately forced to release a statement saying he stands by Traynham, whom he described as a target of partisan-based bigotry.

"Rogers also zeroed in on a staffer for Oklahoma right-winger Jim Inhofe, who has said he does not hire openly gay or lesbian staffers and once declared himself 'really proud' that his recorded family history included no gay relationships. But, as Rogers gleefully revealed, the staffer had posed for a fleshy photo spread in a local gay weekly in which he mused about finding a man with 'six-pack abs you could eat chip and dip off of.' (In response, Inhofe's office drew a distinction between the senator's personal staff and his committee staff, on which the man worked.) Another senior party operative, Rogers revealed, had posted an online personal ad declaring him to be 'just looking for good sex, whether with one or several.' Rogers and other gay media outlets had also chronicled Mark Foley's sexuality, a likely reason Foley never tried to run for Senate in Florida."

So much for privacy. And heterosexual officials behaving badly get a pass?

Last week I wrote about Tony Snow conducting sound-bite warfare in the briefing room and raising money for the GOP. Now the New York Times weighs in with a report from the road:

"In the six months since Mr. Bush enlisted him to resuscitate a White House press operation that was barely breathing, Mr. Snow, a former Fox News television and radio host and a conservative commentator, has reinvented the job with his snappy sound bites and knack for deflecting tough questions with a smile.

"Now, he is reinventing it yet again, by breaking away from the briefing room to raise money for Republicans, as he did here on Saturday night for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert."

California may not be as much of a blue state as everyone assumes, says the L.A. Times :

"By political tradition, California forges its own way. It has affirmed its place in the forefront of reliably Democratic states even as the nation has kept Republicans firmly in control of Congress and the White House.So now that the national mood has shifted amid the troubles in Iraq, giving Democrats a shot at seizing Congress, it is oddly fitting that 2006 is shaping up as a strong year for Republicans in California.

"The Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is heavily favored for reelection Nov. 7 over his Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Phil Angelides. Several other Republicans seeking statewide office are mounting surprisingly competitive races against Democratic rivals, though the outcomes are far from sure. And billions of dollars in bonds and taxes on the ballot face tough prospects, thanks largely to Republican voters' aversion to government growth.

"With its nearly 16 million voters spread across more than 163,000 square miles, California is so vast that it creates an election climate of its own. This year, its dominating force is Schwarzenegger, whose comeback from his political collapse last year is driving a potential Republican resurgence in California -- or at least what would pass for one in a state so effectively Democratic."