MoveOn turns up heat on Tom Delay

From MoveOn:

"Last week, MoveOn members made the news when we took on Republican members of Congress who continue to back Republican leader Tom DeLay despite his numerous ethical and legal misdeeds. The Rocky Mountain News headline was, "MoveOn Targets Beauprez, Musgrave." The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote, "PAC Targeting Hart with Anti-DeLay Radio Ads" and the Ventura County (CA) Star noted that "Gallegly Gets Anti-DeLay Petitions."

In an impressive week:
The "Fire Tom DeLay" petition topped out at more than 484,146 signers urging Republicans to fire DeLay as their leader.
MoveOn volunteers organized 195 events to deliver these signatures to Republican members of Congress and others.
Thousands of MoveOn volunteers attended or organized the petition deliveries and worked hard to alert the media. It paid off. We've seen news stories for about a third of the local events and heard about many more-meaning millions of people heard about their representative's support for Tom DeLay through our efforts.
We've been running ads against seven members of Congress who both come from vulnerable congressional districts and fundraise with DeLay's help.
The goal of all of these actions was to drive home the public outrage over corruption and abuse of power among the Republican leadership and make it clear to Republicans that they should dump DeLay as their leader.

How well did it work? On the front page of today's edition of The Washington Post, there's a story with the headline, "GOP Worries Ethics Issue May Hurt Party in '06."

The article opens:

After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races.

That's what MoveOn members have been working to make a reality.
The reporter adds:

In what Republican strategists call "the DeLay effect," questions plaguing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are starting to hurt his fellow party members, who are facing news coverage of their own trips and use of relatives on their campaign payrolls. Liberal interest groups have begun running advertising in districts where Republicans may be in trouble, trying to tie the incumbents to their leaders' troubles.

This is one sure sign that we've made an impact over the last week. You helped create "the DeLay effect" that is making Republicans nervous by turning up the heat on the members of Congress who shield DeLay from accountability. The media has caught on to the fact that members of Congress who shield DeLay will face troubles of their own. That is helpful and why we have to keep the heat turned up.