Seeking post-Foley unity

Desperate to talk about something other than scandal, House Republican leadership staffs are coordinating a messaging blitz in an attempt to shift some emphasis back to national security and the economy before the Nov. 7 election.

Desperate to talk about something other than scandal, House Republican leadership staffs are coordinating a messaging blitz in an attempt to shift some emphasis back to national security and the economy before the Nov. 7 election.

With less than three weeks for the GOP to salvage its majority, the new media campaign is the first formal coordination between leaders’ offices since they were fractured by the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) sexual explicit messages to underage former pages.

Aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) met yesterday in the Lincoln Room of the Speaker’s Capitol suite to plan ways to help embattled Republicans sidestep national media and target local press.

“We have 20 days to get our message out,” Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean said. “Our focus will be to expose that a Democrat majority would stand for higher taxes and national security policies of weakness and appeasement.”

Republicans are struggling to maintain their majority in the face of dismal poll numbers and stumbles by the White House and the elected leadership, particularly on the Foley matter.

Spending by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) suggests that the field of vulnerable Republicans continues to expand. A handful of GOP lawmakers in safe seats also saw a modest drop in their internal poll numbers in the two weeks after the Foley scandal broke, aides to those members said last week.

In an effort to refocus House Republicans after two weeks of questions about whether Hastert’s senior aides knew about Foley’s history of inappropriate contact with pages, Boehner sent members a memo on Monday urging them to move their message beyond the Foley scandal and work to define congressional Democrats on national security and taxation.

“Just as we were looking forward to going home to talk about what we’d accomplished, the despicable conduct of former Congressman Mark Foley instead became the story,” Boehner wrote.

He then explained that leaders took “action to engage the appropriate authorities to conduct a thorough review of all the facts.

“Having done this, Republicans are back on offense on the big issues facing our nation.”

These House GOP efforts come as national Republicans try to rally staff, donors and volunteers amid widespread fear that the party will lose power in at least one chamber.

On Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman urged GOP aides at the Capitol Hill Club to contrast the two parties on issues such as national security and the economy, an aide present said.

Mehlman walked staffers through some positive developments in states he had visited recently, such as Missouri and Ohio, and explained how he thought Republicans could still hold their majorities in both chambers despite the poisoned political environment.

Afterward, Republican pollster Ed Goas explained how the Foley scandal had a limited political impact and how some of the most recent polls underrepresented the GOP’s base voters.

Republicans have seized on remarks by Democratic leaders in the House to suggest they would let President Bush’s tax cuts lapse or even raise taxes to close the budget deficit. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said she would include a provision in the rules package to implement pay-as-you-go budgeting rules, something conservative Republicans strongly support but that would require Congress to either make drstic cuts in feeral spending or raise taxes.

In his memo to members, Boehner includes a transcript from NBC’s “Meet the Press” in which Pelosi, responding to a question about whether Democrats would raise taxes, said, “You put everything on the table and you decide what are the priorities for the American people.”

Democratic aides said their party remains committed to middle-class tax cuts and charged the Republicans with making desperate political attacks.

“Republicans are playing the only hands they have by trying to create a distraction with desperate and false barbs,” Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said. “Leader Pelosi and House Democrats making fiscal responsibility a high ethical standard and middle class tax cuts a top priority must be a frightening prospect for the failed economic policies and ballooning budget deficits created by President Bush and his rubber stamp Congress.”

Republican leaders in the House are working to coordinate with the White House and various committee chairmen to hold conference calls with local media in competitive districts in an attempt “to define Democrats before they define themselves.”

“We’ll promote the strong Republican positions of fighting the War on Terror and growing the economy to a near 12,000 stock market high,” Bonjean said.

The conference office sent out statements by Hastert, Boehner, Blunt and Pryce yesterday commending Bush for signing a law reinforcing the administration’s program to try terrorism suspects. Hastert and Boehner both took shots at congressional Democrats while Blunt and Pryce focused on the benefits of the law itself.

Republican staffers are widely discouraged about their chance of holding the House in November.

Despite leadership efforts to refocus the debate, the ethics committee continues to question members and staff about when leaders first knew about Foley’s inappropriate contact with pages, ensuring that this story will remain in the news through the election.

House Sergeant at Arms Bill Livingood, who is one of six members of the House Page Board, and Boehner chief of staff Paula Nowakowski appeared before the investigative panel yesterday. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), whose office sponsored one of the pages at the center of the scandal, is scheduled to appear today and Boehner is expected to answer questions tomorrow.

The Associated Press reported that members of the Page Board are interviewing former pages that took a rafting trip in 1996 organized by retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.).

Whatever comes out of the ethics investigation, Republican leaders will continue their efforts to frame the debate as the election approaches.

The staff is planning to meet each morning and convene daily conference calls to discuss strategy during the remaining days before the election, aides said, adding that they hope to include committee staff and up to 30 Republican press secretaries to help.

“We’re working together to remind the American people of the clear choice they face this election,” Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Boulanger said.