Will Religious Conseratives Abandon the GOP Over Foleygate?

The Washington Post suggests in an article today that the Foleygate situation will cause religious conservatives to abandon the GOP:

Republican strategists said yesterday that public revulsion over the sexually graphic online conversations between Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and former House pages could compound the party's problems enough to tip the House to the Democrats in November -- and could jeopardize the party's hold on the Senate as well.

As House GOP leaders defended their role in handling revelations that forced Foley on Friday to give up his House seat, party strategists said the scandal threatens to depress turnout among Christian conservatives and could hamper efforts to convince undecided and swing voters that Republicans deserve to remain in the majority.

There was intense anger among social conservative activists in Washington yesterday, and some called for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to resign...

Others warned that the impact could be much greater. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and an important social conservative leader, said "there's a real chance" that the episode could dethrone the Republican majority. "I think the next 48 hours are critical in how this is handled," he said, adding that "when a party holds itself out as the guardian of values, this is not helpful."

As a religious conservative myself, I have no plans to abandon the party just because of one bad apple, but I have lost much of the confidence I once had in the GOP congressional leadership, and frankly, I think it's time for new blood in the senior positions in both houses of congress.

The Post seems to suggest that at any sign of scandal religious conservatives flee, but that's just not true. Some may be discouraged and less inclined to vote, but as a whole, religious conservatives and first and foremost responsible citizens who believe it's important to do their duty in the ballot box.

Like other values voters, we expect our leaders to be leaders, and to be above rapproach in their personal lives. Leadership has been lacking from Speaker Hastert, and to some degree from Majority Leader Frist. If nothing else, one of the results of the November midterm should be new leaders. Frist will be gone since he's retiring in advance of a presidential run, but should the GOP retain the House, I hope they'll clean house and get a much stronger Speaker. They'll need it if they retain the House with a very narrow margin.

Oh, and one more thing. There's still five weeks until the election, and given how fast events turned this past weekend over the Foleygate situation, there's still plenty of time for events to U-turn on the Dems once again.