A Capitol Hill sex scandal is the latest bad news to deflate Republicans and leave them scrambling for political survival four weeks before elections that will decide whether they keep control of the US Congress.
While Republicans tried to contain the fallout from Florida Representative Mark Foley's lewd messages to teenage congressional assistants, they also have been forced to fight off new political firestorms over the Iraq war and a lingering influence-peddling scandal.
The wave of bad news broke just as President Bush and Republicans were enjoying slight upturns in their approval ratings and prospects in the November 7th midterm congressional elections.
"We were on a bump up and then a whole bunch of things hit," said Republican pollster David Winston.
A survey Winston took last week found the sex scandal had not yet changed voter intentions or attitudes toward Republicans, but a Newsweek poll released on Saturday said Democrats had overtaken a long-held Republican advantage on the "moral values" issue.
Democrats are on a roll in the battle to control the public debate ahead of the election, when they must pick up 15 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives and six seats in the 100-member Senate to seize power.
When the Foley scandal broke, Bush and Republicans were already on the defensive over a National Intelligence Estimate that said the Iraq war had actually fueled Islamic extremism.
A new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Postsaid the White House bungled the Iraq war and Bush misled Americans about the extent of violence.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, added to the fire on Thursday after a trip to Iraq. He said the country had taken a step back and the United States might soon need to consider "a change of course" there.
A new Timemagazine poll found a majority of Americans, 54 per cent, thought Bush misled the country in making his case for the Iraq war, and a new AP/Ipsos poll gave Democrats an edge over Republicans in fighting terrorism - usually a Republican strength.