Democrat officials in the House and Senate told the Post that news coverage of DeLay's travel and ties to lobbyists, along with his high profile in the congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, have given them an opening to use him as more of a foil.

They added that until now, he was so little known to the public - despite his enormous power at the Capitol - that attacks on him were not effective.

Fronting the new assault is the Campaign for America's Future, a labor-backed organization that has produced the TV attacks on DeLay and plans to air them in at least four Republican House districts.

The group told the Post it is buying a 30-second ad in DeLay's suburban Houston district that shows a man wearing cuff links and a Rolex watch, and washing his hands.

"Tom DeLay: He'd like to wash his hands of corruption," the announcer says before recounting charges against the majority leader and blasting him for leading the Congressional effort to save Terri Schiavo. "Tom DeLay can't wash his hands of corruption," the ad concludes. "But Congress can certainly wash its hands of Tom DeLay."

According to the Post, the group also plans ads designed to put pressure on Republican members to "stand with DeLay or decency."

The Campaign for America's future received $300,000 from billionaire leftist George Soros last year. Soros has been identified as the chief sponsor of the war on DeLay.

Among the group's advisers, the Post reports, is feminist Betty Friedan. Republicans contend that the group has ties to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., noting that she is on the advisory committee of the Progressive Majority, whose political action committee's board chairman is Robert L. Borosage, the co-director of Campaign for America's Future.

Democratic strategist Jim Jordan told the Post that he expects dozens of campaign ads next year to show GOP candidates morphing into DeLay. "Take a secret ballot of his caucus, ask how many want to be campaigning with the guy," he said.

Dan Allen, DeLay's communications director, told the Post, "House Democrats have no agenda, ideas or solutions, and they have resorted to a well-organized and carefully orchestrated scorched-earth strategy against House Republicans that is being funded by liberal heavy hitters."

As the Post noted, the liberal hatchet job on DeLay is similar to the campaign the left waged against former Speaker Newt Gingrich, whom they saw as a danger to the left's domination of the political arena after the Gingrich-crafted Contract with America cost them control of the House.

DeLay's proven ability to win more House seats for the GOP and his efforts to add even more Republicans to the House roster dooms any Democratic hopes of regaining control in the foreseeable future. Their only response, it appears, is to launch a witch-hunt against him.

Editor's note: