A view on the political fallout from the
Schiavo travesty:
Still, for Mr. DeLay in particular, the decision to step forward in the first place - after weeks in which he had methodically avoided television cameras as he fended off questions about his ethics - may prove to be crucial in what could turn out to be his most difficult year in Congress. While the Schiavo case may have energized his conservative supporters, Democrats and some independent analysts say,
it may also have thrust him into the national consciousness at the very moment his opponents are trying to make him a symbol of Republican excess and force another ethics investigation.
. . . Some Democrats have begun drawing parallels between Mr. DeLay and another Republican who eventually became a weight on his party, former Speaker Newt Gingrich. "The public is beginning to sense a whiff of extremism in the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "If it continues, it could prove very detrimental to them and good for us."
It is not just Democrats who share that view. In a regular e-mail commentary he distributes, former Senator Dave Durenberger, Republican of Minnesota, wrote, "If I were a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 2006, I would make DeLay the issue in the campaign right now."
Extreme and out of the mainstream GOP. And their face is Tom DeLay.