"I don't believe that I'm as dumb as you once thought I thought that I was..."

Ann Althouse, generally fair and even-handed blogger, posts this most excellent commentary on the reactions of Social Conservatives to the Foley non-scandal-as-scandal today:

There is a tendency to assume the morals voters are naive, that you can play them and even talk about how you're playing them and they won't see the whole picture that includes you trying to play them. The aggressive politicization of the Foley story is itself a story and the voters witness it and react. It's hardly surprising if they've reacted with revulsion to politicians for their expedient use of the story to claw toward power, which really is more repugnant than self-indulgent sexual expression. Would it shake your preconceptions to find out that even hardcore morals voters see that?

Yes, in short, we don't like being condescended to. Bill Kristol made that point as well yesterday on FNS:

"...And I do honestly believe now the media is trying to stampede the social -- you know, they're treating social conservatives like idiots, for one thing, like children. "Oh my God, one of 230 House members was gay and a real creep, and therefore we're not going to vote on the issues we care about, therefore we're going to abandon every position we have, we're going to retreat in horror from the polls in November and let the Democrats win a majority."

He and Mara Liasson both rightly contended in yesterday's panel that this is not a change-your-vote dynamic at work. We who vote in other Republican districts, unless there's some other factor pushing us, have no reason to vote out our incumbent or suddenly switch to keep the Democrat in place.

It's still about 15 races in the House and 8 in the Senate.