Tom DeLay...The saga continues

Over at Dean's World, Joe Gandelman has a piece on some more digging by the Washington Post on the Bugman's paid vacations. It would appear that the charges for his junket to play golf in England were put on lobbyist's credit cards, a direct violation of House rules.
While it's good that all of this dirt is piled on Mr. DeLay perhaps this is not the issue that is going to really resonate in the voters minds. A recent poll is DeLay's Sugerland district indicated that his support there had dropped to under 40%. What did the voters in his district most object to? The fact that he had paid is wife and daughter a half of a million dollars, not that lobbyists had been funding his vacations. DeLay attempted to divert attention from his ethical problems by jumping on the Terri Schiavo case. This totally backfired as we can see in the polls where 80% of Americans were opposed to congressional intervention, including over 50% who consider themselves evangelical Christians. A vast majority of Americans, including many evangelicals are shocked and dismayed by the attack on the judiciary by DeLay, Frist and the snake handlers of the radical Christian right. As Chuck Currie reported yesterday, 17 Baptist ministers in Louisville, Kentucky urged the Highview Baptist Church to cancel "Justice Sunday".
There is an editorial in the Portland Oregonian this morning which discusses the feelings of the old time Libertarian base of the Republican party:

I n the past few months, American conservatism has swerved toward a power-hungry self-righteousness that scares many Republicans. One of the fearful is John Danforth.

The former senator wrote that "Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians." The policy of the party, he warned, seemed to be "the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law."

Danforth -- a Missouri Republican, hero to pro-lifers, patron of Clarence Thomas, ordained priest and tireless conservative -- makes an unlikely Jeremiah. But he speaks for many citizens who worry that something has gone badly awry since George Bush's inauguration.

There is more and I suggest you go read the entire thing.

While DeLay's ethical lapses are important his anti-judiciary theocratic ranting is what will really turn the majority against him and the rest of the extremists who have hi-jacked the government. People expect their politicians to be corrupt but the don't expect their politicians to undermine the constitution.