The Kansan struck a nerve. From a reader in the other GOP base:

Your reader is right , at least anecdotally among my circle of conservative friends. Though I live in the DC area, I work in the private sector in and am pretty representative of the economic (non evangelical) wing of ‘conservatism’. To those of us in the real world, the idea that this goes beyond Foley himself and is being used to try to bring down the entire majority is absurd. I would be more dissapointed to know that Hastert even knew this backbencher was ‘overly friendly.’ He has bigger fish to fry than babysitting some flake from Florida in my caucus. A lot of my friends who were pretty down on this election and Congress in general have started talking politics for the first time in months. And the topic is how the media is exploiting this to help the Dems. I am certainly more fired up than I have been in a very long time. Somebody had a comment that this is a perfect moment for the ‘mommy’ party. Maybe, but I hate the mommy party.