As for what their parents are thinking by sending them to be Congressional Pages, it is probably as follows. They are probably thinking that it is an excellent opportunity for their politically interested youngster to actually get a view of the way government actually works that is afforded few people. They are probably thinking that someone so clearly in the public eye wouldn't be so stupid as to jeopardize their position by doing something so stupid as stalking their child. They are probably thinking that the House would closely chaperone the minors that they have invited to work for them. After all, they try to micromanage the lives of 300 million people on a daily basis.
As much as Republicans wish the story would just go away, it is a valid point of inquiry to find out whether or not: 1.) Congress had sufficient safety protocols in place to deal with such a situation, 2.) if so, whether and how those protocols were violated by Rep. Foley, 3.) if the allegations are true that House leaders had been informed of irregularities in Foley's interactions with underage pages and 4.) if they had been informed what were the reasons that substantive action was not taken for months to address the situation.
If this situation had involved a middle school or high school teacher that was sending salacious IMs to his minor pupils and if it had been further alleged that this behavior was an open secret among the principals and administrators, the calls on our side for prison time for such negligence would be reaching high decibel levels by now.
It may well be that the timing of the story is politically motivated. Guess what? Politics has been, is and always will be a dirty game. The timing of the story does not diminish what should be valid concerns among both Democrats and Republicans regarding the administration of the Page program. If an investigation shows that the House leadership was not properly informed and so could not have acted, then that's wonderful. If it shows negligence then a price does indeed have to be paid. Either staffers or members of leadership were derelict in their responsibility and the fact that they have an "R" after their name wouldn't make that dereliction any less repugnant.
As for the effect on the midterm elections, it will probably be minimal in either direction. Conservative voters will vote based on whether their Congresscritter advances the conservative agenda. They won't tar the whole bunch for the actions of one. What will hurt them is the attempt to try and portray all aspects of this as a political stunt. It is undeniable that part of it are politically motivated. It doesn't change the underlying assertions however.
Speaker Hastert's response to this has been, as usual, rather clumsy. He probably took the first constructive step today by announcing an investigation. He should make several points consistently clear: first, (which he HAS done) is that Foley is predator scum; second, that because he's predator scum, (who, by the way hasn't denied the validity of any of the charges and who almost certainly resigned so quickly because as with other sexual predators what we know at present probably represents the tip of the iceberg) the leadership moved to quickly remove; third, that while the House leaders knew of some questionable but hardly actionable emails, the IM content was totally unknown to them; and that 4), unlike the Democrats, the Republican leadership of the House is committed to finding out what, if anything is wrong in their procedures regarding the Page program and to fixing anything that they find wrong so that the chances of it happening again will be greatly reduced.
Or they had never heard of Gerry Studds.
The emails were questionable but the IM's were salacious. The difference is the creepy emails were known on a limited basis while the IM's were just released. So your analogy is wrong unless it is proven that certain Pubbies actually knew about the IMs. Please don't substitute the emails for the IMs - that's is just as misleading as the MSM calling the NSA wire tapping domestic spying.