Foley ripple effect

After realizing they had received money from disgraced former GOP Florida Rep. Mark Foley's PAC, Republican Alabama Governor Bob Riley and Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-AL are donating the money to charities. Both are up for reelection in November.

Other candidates donating Foley PAC money to charity include Virginia Sen. George Allen, Rep. Clay Shaw, R-FL, and Rep. Geoff Davis, R-KY. But, according to the same article, not everyone is trying to distance themselves:

[T]he National Republican Congressional Committee, which has received $550,000 from Foley since 1996, will keep its money, committee spokesman Carl Forti said.

"We will be using the money like every other contribution — to help elect Republicans across the country," Forti said.

Nick Lampson, who founded and chaired the the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, called the NRCC's move "despicable" and has organized an effort to call on Foley and the NRCC to donate the disgraced Congressman's $2.7 million campaign war chest to the National Center for Missing Exploited Children.

Elsewhere, the scandal has brought quick condemnation from the South Carolina and Arkansas congressional delegations.

How all of this might affect the upcoming election is yet to be seen. Some (including me) thought that the timing of this story would conveniently push coverage of last week's detainee and torture bill and Woodward's latest revelations about the war in Iraq off the front page, not to mention Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) proposing that the Taliban be brought in to the Afghan government as a "political solution".

The scandal has certainly distracted the media from all that, but as a blog commenter noted elsewhere, "It's an unmitigated disaster, flushing millions in high-grade family values branding down the toilet in a span of hours. The timing couldn't have been worse."