Even though he resigned in shame yesterday, House Republicans still have Eliot Spitzer to kick around.

Seizing on the Empire State's biggest sex scandal of the century (thus far), the National Republican Congressional Committee is sticking to its crusade to bash New York Democratic lawmakers and candidates for the thousands of dollars in campaign contributions they've received from Spitzer.

"New York Democrats should resign themselves to giving up the disgraced governor's sleazy cash before it's too late and they find themselves being escorted out of office by the voters in November," says NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.

Even after Spitzer resigned, the NRCC whipped off a press release bashing three-term Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) for taking a $2,000 campaign donation from the now former governor.

"Will Tim Bishop Return Spitzer's Sleazy Money?" blared the headline. Noting that Bishop ran on an ethics reform platform, the GOP release asked, "The question is simple, will Democrat Tim Bishop live up to his promise of holding elected officials to a higher standard or will he run and hide from his campaign promises once again?"

Before going after Bishop, the NRCC earlier this week attacked three freshman New York House Democrats -- Reps. Michael Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand and John Hall -- and two New York Democratic House candidates, Dan Maffei and Eric Massa, for taking "sleazy" money from Spitzer.

Massa returned the cash he took from Spitzer, but only after the NRCC circulated three freeze-frame photos of Massa and Spitzer together taken from one of Massa's own campaign ads, which featured the words "trust," "integrity" and "respect."

Massa is running for a second time in a row against Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-N.Y.). And tying the Democratic candidate to a sex scandal-plagued governor in this upstate New York race is particularly good for Republicans, since Kuhl is no stranger to controversy.

Kuhl's sealed divorce records were curiously leaked just weeks before the 2004 election, when Kuhl was elected for the first time. Kuhl's wife reportedly alleged in the records that Kuhl pulled not one but two shotguns on her at a dinner party and threatened to shoot her.

Stay tuned to see which controversy outguns the other.

By Mary Ann Akers  |  March 13, 2008; 5:00 AM ET
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