Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- If you always wondered how far politicians would go to keep the committee chairmanship, the mahogany-walled office lush with staff, the warm car purring at the curb, look no further than the majority in Congress.

Watch as U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and others in the know try to blame each other for leaving congressional pages to the attentions of Representative Mark Foley. Stare at the spectacle of every man for himself. And admire the efficiency of Republicans: It took Democrats 40 years to love power for power's sake and do anything to keep it. The Republicans managed it in less than a decade.

Hastert told talk-show host Rush Limbaugh that it is partisan Democrats who are calling for his head. Actually, it's so much worse for him. Most of those beating the drum to sideline the speaker are members of his own party hoping that a ritual sacrifice will satisfy voters in time for Election Day. Boehner told a local radio station that not only was Hastert told about Foley's inappropriate contact with a page, but that the responsibility to do something was squarely ``in his corner.''

With his colleagues all but calling him a liar, Hastert gave an interview to CNN in which he allowed that well, yes, he might have been told, but that it was ``in the context maybe of a half a dozen or a dozen other things... that might have affected the campaign,'' so he ``just didn't remember that.''

The Campaign

And there it is: the campaign. Hastert was more desperate to save a seat than to save a child. In and of itself, the Foley scandal doesn't weigh as heavily on voters' minds as the war in Iraq. But it may turn out to be a tipping point.

Even before Foley, Republicans had slipped mightily in the public's esteem -- Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House and multiple bribes, the resignation in disgrace of Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the arrest and imprisonment of Representative Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham for steering business to a contractor who lavished money and gifts upon him. That's not to mention the party's failure to control spending, pass a budget, tackle immigration or do anything to stop the carnage in Iraq.

Those who defended Hastert on talk radio early in the week kept bringing up Bill Clinton (of course) and how Foley was an isolated situation resolved by the Florida congressman's blessedly quick resignation.

But these are the same people who fretted endlessly over what the children would think during impeachment, as did I. Here we're dealing with a page, more child than man, a 16-year-old in high school so in need of being protected that he's living in a dorm under constant supervision.

Where Is Falwell?

Where is the Reverend Jerry Falwell, fresh from calling Senator Hillary Clinton worse than the devil? Where is Senator Rick Santorum, who was offended by man/dog love, or the Reverend James Dobson of Focus on the Family? They haven't dismissed the e-mails as simply ``naughty'' (as did White House spokesman Tony Snow) or ``overly friendly'' (Hastert's caucus), but they have barely expressed any outrage.

There are no doubt churches all over the country damning Republicans' conduct, but not operatives in the evangelical movement. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, couldn't bring himself to damn Republicans. He would only say that the Foley affair shows a ``problem in the culture as a whole.''

In the real America Republicans claim to be so much in touch with, no adult -- not a member of the family or godparent -- would get away with writing a 16-year-old asking for a picture and what he would like for his birthday.

No one would need a second round of e-mails to be persuaded of the nature of the request. No one would wait months, if not years, to take action (one senior staff member says he told Hastert three years ago about Foley and the pages). No one would keep it quiet, even if the parents so desired, because other parents would be owed a warning. As other e-mails reported by ABC News show, Foley had many pages where that one came from.

`Values' Anyone?

What Hurricane Katrina was to swing voters, an inescapable tableau of the incompetence of the administration they had been supporting, the Foley scandal may turn out to be for ``values voters.'' It's an unmistakable sign that the party to which they have sold their soul cares far less about them than it does for the other half of their fragile coalition on Wall Street. The Wall Street folks have gotten almost everything they hoped for -- a record-high stock market, tax cuts and breaks as far as the eye can see. What does James Dobson have to show for his support?

Foley is mercifully gone in the one-size-fits-all excuse of alcohol and abuse. He doesn't matter, but the bishops and cardinals who remain do. I can't say what is going to happen in the election five weeks from now, but I predict Hastert will be gone by then. Republicans won't have their followers go into the voting booth believing that they can't be trusted with the children.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 5, 2006 00:12 EDT