Two years ago, Democrat Tim Mahoney won Florida’s 16th congressional district after Congressman Mark Foley resigned due to a sex scandal.
Democrats outed Foley as homosexual and implicated him in a sex scandal with a House page. The Democrats held on to the information for a year, releasing it in October of 2006, just before the election.
This time, the GOP is getting payback.
News outlets are breathlessly reporting Congressman Tim Mahoney paid his mistress, a former employee, $121,000.00 after she threatened to sue him. The campaign had tried to cover it up.
Mahoney is running against Tom Rooney, a dynamic former JAG officer and criminal prosecutor. Rooney is now in private practice in Stuart, Fla.
The race has been very close, with Mahoney barely leading within the margin of error. Assuming Rooney can exploit the scandal and pick up the grassroots help he needs, this will be one bright spot on an otherwise dismal horizon for the Republicans.
Two other bright spots are Texas-22 and Georgia-08.
In Texas-22, Republican Pete Olson, a former staffer to Senator Phil Gramm, is challenging Democrat Nick Lampson. This is Tom DeLay’s old congressional district and is heavily Republican.
For a short time, Lampson seemed to benefit from his aggressive, hands-on approach to hurricane recovery, but his vote on the Wall Street bailout did him no favors in the district. Lampson has generally been able to avoid sticky voting issues, but Olson has deftly exploited every opportunity.
Attacks against Olson have mostly fallen flat. In fact, Lampson has been so desperate to attack Olson that he used a group called the Lone Star Project to go after Olson. The attacks centered on Olson’s opposition to bailing out the mortgage industry, but the group is heavily funded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives and lawyers.
In Georgia-08, Congressman Jim Marshall is in the fight for his life. Marshall, a liberal Democrat who works very hard at appearing moderate, is being challenged by former General Rick Goddard.
Goddard had been the very popular commanding General of Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Ga., one of the major employers in the district. Likewise, the 8th district, as now drawn, is mostly Saxby Chambliss’s old congressional district. This will be the first time the voters in the district will together be able to vote for Saxby. And despite some polling to the contrary, Saxby remains very popular in the 8th Congressional District.
Two years ago, Marshall won re-election against former Congressman Mac Collins by less than two percentage points. This will be another close election, and one that could go in Goddard’s favor.
