Time Running Out For GOP As Congressman Faces Abuse Allegations

Time is the word doing all the work in that headline, and it's the right word. When your own colleagues start saying a member of your conference shouldn't serve, you're no longer in the phase where you can manage a story. You're in the phase where the story manages you. Waiting it out has never once made these things go away, and it's baffling that anyone still tries.

Republicans have watched this movie before, and they know how it ends if they let it run too long. Every week a member stays in place after credible abuse allegations surface, it stops being his problem and starts being the party's. Voters don't parse the difference between "innocent until proven" and "why is he still voting on bills." They just remember the name attached to the party letter.

There's also a basic decency question that shouldn't need a poll to answer. If leadership actually believes he shouldn't serve, they have the tools to act instead of hoping the news cycle moves on. Statements of concern are not accountability. A resignation letter is.

None of this is about the other side keeping score, though they will. It's about whether the party that talks about protecting families actually behaves like it when one of its own is accused. Get ahead of it, or get dragged by it. Those are the only two options left, and the clock the headline mentions is not going to slow down out of respect for anyone's career.