FOLEY BOWS OUT

With 14,000 absentee ballots still uncounted -- and his House Speakership down the tubes, in any case -- Tom Foley conceded Washington state's 5th Congressional District race to GOP newcomer George Nethercutt. Just 2,174 votes (or 1 percent) down, Foley, the first sitting Speaker dumped since the Civil War, chose not to wait days for the final count -- which, half-completed, favored Nethercutt 55 to 45 percent. What sunk the 15-termer? The mostly-conservative voters couldn't forgive him for joining a 1992 court battle challenging a citizen term limits initiative, ramming through President Clinton's gun-control-heavy crime billand hawking the Clinton health care plan.Post your opinion to theElection '94bulletin board