Next Time, Find A Democrat

Tim Mahoney has been caught paying off a mistress. The upgrade here over Mark Foley, the guy Mahoney replaced, is that the mistress is of legal age.

Mahoney was a Republican pretty much until 2006, when Rahm Emanuel recruited him to run against Foley, pushing aside an actual Democrat who was running for the seat. Emanuel now is working overtime to limit the political damage of this scandal:

Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting his re-election campaign, the Mahoney staffers said.

A spokesperson for Emanuel denies that account, but said Emanuel did confront Mahoney "upon hearing a rumor" about an affair in 2007 and "told him he was in public life and had a responsibility to act accordingly." The spokesperson added that it was a "private conversation" that had nothing to do with Mahoney's re-election prospects.

Mahoney is probably toast and may have been anyway in a Republican district. All of which goes to show that leaders should be locally grown and locally discovered instead of plucked from the top by the likes of Rahm Emanuel. His judgment is officially suspect.