RUMBLINGS ON THE RIGHT: REPUBLICAN CONGRESSLOONS DEBATE WHETHER OR NOT TO RETURN DELAY'S TAINTED MONEY

Even if the Florida authorities can't make murder charges (or even accessory to a murder or conspiracy to a murder or whatever he did to knock off his ex-partner in the shady cruise line business) against DeLay stick, members of the GOP House caucus are getting mighty nervous about having accepted all those checks from what is looking more and more like the head of one of the biggest crime syndicates in the U.S. A couple days ago I reported that endangered New Hampshire Republican, Jeb Bradley, announced that he didn't want DeLay's tainted loot and that he was returning $15,000 to the indicted former Majority Leader. Bradley wasn't one of the big recipients of DeLay's deluge of cash. Heather Wilson (R-NM), on the other hand, was. In fact, she was either the biggest or second biggest recipient of DeLay's filthy dollars in recent years-- definitely north of $50,000, and perhaps VERY VERY far north if you count in all the DeLay cronies and front organizations who were funneling funds into her campaign coffers. She is considered a prime candidate for retirement by state and national Democrats, and she jumped on the bail-on-DeLay bandwagon yesterday.

Wilson announced she will return the $10,000 DeLay gave her for her 2006 campaign but said she has no intention of returning the tens of thousands of dollars he's given her in previous years. (Presumably if he's convicted of the Florida murder, she will give it all back, in the unlikely event that she's still in office by then.) Reformers and bloggers all over the country have been calling on more Republicans to give back the tainted money. A great Wisconsin blog, THE DYSKEPTIC ran a piece today called RYAN AND GREEN CLING TO DELAY PAC CASH WHILE THE TEMPLE BURNS. Dyskeptic writes that "two of Wisconsin's representatives have knowingly participated in what has become the most serious scandal in Washington since Iran-contra. And one of them wants to be our next governor. Reps. Mark Green (R-Green Bay) and Paul Ryan of (R-Janesville) received tens of thousands of dollars from Tom DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC. According to the Public Campaign Action Fund, Paul Ryan received over $25,000 in ARMPAC dough, while gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mark Green was enriched by almost $30,000."

When Green's campaign manager, Mark Graul, was cornered (like a rat) by the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL he concocted a couple of the most lame-ass excuses you ever heard, one so convoluted with nuance I can't even figure out how to explain it and the other more straightforward, though not especially less full of crap: "That money has been since spent, so there is no contribution to return." (The Dyskeptic points out, helpfully, that Green's campaign has over a million dollars in the bank.)

Bloggers in New Jersey are having a field day with their Junior DeLay, Mike Ferguson, the only congressloon to have gotten as much DeLay moolah as Wilson. Yesterday BlueJersey went into the Ferguson-DeLay partnership in great detail. "Tom DeLay's indictment earlier this week, has a bigger impact on New Jersey then anyone could imagine. More specifically, NJ's 7th Congressional District, currently occupied by Mike Ferguson. Ferguson just happens to be the biggest recipient of contributions from DeLay totaling $54,403. And oh wow, DeLay has been funding Ferguson's campaigns since he ran against Frank Pallone in NJ-6 and won against Maryanne Connelly in NJ-7. A TEXAN IS BUYING NJ ELECTIONS. Something has to be done about this. It doesn't make sense to me how someone not even from our state can buy this much influence and effect our elections. But hopefully, 2006 will be a rude awakening to Ferguson and we will take back the district with Joe Tricarico in the forefront."

In fact, wherever you look, you find proof of DeLay's tentacles. Florida bloggers were particularly up in arms about all the tainted DeLay cash that their state is awash in. But Minnesota Republican Watch had a different spin on the whole issue:

"If there is a parallel universe for Republican politicians facing campaign finance criminal charges, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and former Minnesota Republican Chairman Ron Eibensteiner could be living in it. ...

"DeLay was indicted this week by a grand jury in Austin, Texas, on a felony charge of criminal conspiracy involving $190,000 in corporate contributions that were sent to the Republican National State Elections Committee, RNSEC, in 2002 and then allegedly returned to Texas candidates in violation of state law.

"Eibensteiner was indicted in 2003 by a grand jury in Austin, Minn., on a gross misdemeanor charge of forwarding a banned $10,000 corporate contribution to RNSEC in 2002 that was then returned to the Republican gubernatorial candidate as legal donations from individuals. Eibensteiner is set to go to trial Nov. 7. ...

"'I'm actually thrilled with the parallel and to be associated with Tom DeLay, because I know if Tom DeLay's case is anything similar to mine ... I'm in good company,' Eibensteiner said. ...

"'If you talk to Tom DeLay, just tell him he has a fan up in Minnesota,' Eibensteiner said."


UPDATE:

According to Ron Grunzberger at Politics 1, another Repug Congressloon is bailing on DeLay: Congressman Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) said he would donate all of the $14,500 he received from DeLay's PAC to the Bush-Clinton hurricane relief group. "It’s time [for me] to sever any and all ties with the gentleman from Texas," explained Hulshof to the Columbia Daily Tribune, who added Sunday he does not want DeLay returning to the leadership regardless of the outcome of the charges. (For Hulshof's sake I hope he doesn't have a son or daughter trying to get into politics.)