‘Coach’ Hastert benches himself from national races

In his country home overlooking a duck pond and a grove of gnarled apple trees, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is cloistered with a cadre of staffers, making phone calls and plans.

The phone calls are to offer encouragement and advice to fellow Republicans running for the House around the country.

The plans are to score a solid win in the one district he hasn’t had to worry about much in recent years -- his own, in the rural landscape and rolling suburban neighborhoods 50 miles west of Chicago.

“You just never want to take a chance, you know,” Hastert said, taking a break from his phone calls one day this week. “You just want to win and make sure you have the confidence of the people you represent.”

It is a testament to the party’s predicament that Hastert, traditionally one of its most popular spokesmen, is tooling around his district in his SUV rather than traversing the country to stump for colleagues in close races.

But the veteran politician called “the coach” has largely benched himself from the national races in recent weeks, at least where public appearances are concerned.

Critics are blaming Hastert for the way House Republicans responded to early signs of suspicious behavior by former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who resigned from Congress in late September as sexually suggestive electronic messages he sent to former House pages were made public. The controversy has made Hastert’s public presence a liability to other Republican candidates at a time when their victory seems more important for him than ever.

“You don’t want to bring controversy into a member’s district, someone who has a tough race,” Hastert said. “Quite frankly, [Democrats] have been pretty good at nailing us down.”

Before the controversy broke, Hastert planned to make more than 30 trips in October to hotly contested races around the country. The campaign stops for the month totaled fewer than 10 -- a stark contrast for a campaigner who in the last three election cycles has been one of the national Republican Party’s most popular headliners.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the House Democrats’ chief election strategist, thinks Hastert is focusing on the safest haven he can find -- his home district.

“Like President Bush, Speaker Hastert is confined to a safe Republican district,” Emanuel said. “That district just happens to be his.”