There's really no way to calculate the monetary cost to the GOP of the recent sex-related scandals involving GOP congressmen, but you get hints of the toll here and there.

I already touched on the $271,000 the NRCC spent yesterday to boost Joe Negron, the sacrificial lamb in the race for Mark Foley's seat, who doesn't even get to have his own name on the ballot. That's money that clearly would have been used elsewhere were it not for the page eruption.

A couple of days ago, the NRCC suddenly plowed $225,000 into the NV-2, an open seat that heretofore had not garnered much attention. Why the sudden interest? Well, that's Jim Gibbons' seat, and while Gibbons is running for governor of Nevada, his late night carousing and alleged assault on a cocktail waitress are probably not leaving voters in that district with a warm fuzzy GOP feeling.

A quarter million here and a quarter million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.