Tierney’s always been a pretty high “moral outrage” guy against the Republicans hasn’t he? Why can’t this go national the way the Republicans were held to account in ‘06 for Mark Foley’s alleged crimes. Plus there was no there there and Foley resigned.
There are no more Congressional pages and Tierney wasn't emailing any of them.
But Garry Studds -- a Massachusetts Congressman a generation back -- was sexually involved with male pages and it didn't hurt him at the polls, so maybe if Tierney were into that sort of thing it could actually help him with voters.
Tierney's scandal is typical money stuff, the sort of thing that never goes national, unless it involves somebody higher up than Tierney is. A story about a crooked wife and her crooked brothers doesn't usually travel very far.
Mark Foley's scandal took on significance because of the timing. Republicans were in real trouble that year and the Foley thing added fire to the flames because of the scandalous nature of the accusations, which came out close to the election.