I haven’t had much to add to the House leadership race, but one observation I think might be worth making is that this is bad news for the Democrats. I am agnostic about whether Boehner is a good pick to lead the House GOP. I’m also undecided about the merits of at least some of the charges against Tom Delay. But as a public relations matter Delay was a liability. Some of that liability was attributable to Delay’s own actions. And some of it was due to a years of attacks by Democrats. The Democrats have invested a great deal in the demonization of “the Hammer” since the late 1990s. Obviously, Democrats will try to paint Boehner as a Delay clone and the leadership changes as superficial. Fair or not, it’s unlikely they will be able to demonize Boehner overnight, at least in time for the 2006 elections. Why? Leaving aside the cosmetics and substance of the new Republic reform crusade, the simple fact is that it takes a long time for the American people to get up to speed on new faces and developments in Washington.

Two examples of what I mean:

• Two months after Newt Gingrich’s historic takeover of the House, based on the Contract with America, all of which was covered with nigh upon total panic by the MSM — an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 39 percent of Americans didn’t know what the Contract with America was.

• In 1996, a Washington Post/Harvard survey found that “four in ten Americans don’t know that the Republicans control Congress; and half either think the Democratic Party is more conservative politically than the GOP or don’t feel they know enough to offer a guess.”

In other words, even if Boehner were worse than Delay in every way, public relations-wise (an impossibility largely because the GOP caucus will not allow it), it would still take a long time to educate the public about it.