Maybe he could have used a little better phrasing.

Asked by The Hill, a Washington-based congressional insider news letter, about whether he would support Dennis Hastert, who’s under fire in the Mark Foley sex scandal, for another term as speaker, House District 9 (Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas) candidate Gus Bilirakis responded, “We have no stance on that right now — we’ll worry about that after we win.”

Campaign spokeswoman Liz Hittos acknowledged that doesn’t sound too good, but said the context explains it. The question posed, she said, referred to a specific House leadership election that will take place after the new Congress is elected.

Bilirakis “interpreted it to mean, will you vote for him for speaker, and his feeling was, I don’t want to be presumptuous, I won’t decide that until I’m in office,” Hittos said.

Get Weekly Deals | Write a letter to the editor | Subscribe and get two weeks free | Place an Ad