M. Stanton Evans wrote in the late 1980s about the Reagan Republicans who came to Washington:
 
“Most conservatives know when they come to Washington that it is a sewer; the trouble is, too many of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.”
 
The “hot tub” term almost exclusively describes Republicans (and not Democrats) in Washington who quickly become too comfortable in the Beltway establishment. Writer Christopher Manion has frequently written about the “GOP Hot Tubbers,” especially on the libertarian LewRockwell.com website.
 
   
Wikipedia: M. Stanton Evans
Medford Stanton Evans (born July 20, 1934) is an American journalist, author and educator. He is the author of eight books, including Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies (2007).
   
The Heritage Foundation
August 1, 1989
Are Principles Passe’?
by Christopher Manion, Ph.D.
(...)
Thus the subtitle, drawn from the observation made famous by Stan Evans: “Most conservatives know when they come to Washington that it is a sewer; the trouble is, too many of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.”
 
Google Books
The Weekly Washington Report on Housing
Washington, September 8, 1989
Pg. 42:
DelliBovi concludes his memo with a warning by conservative columnist Stanton Evans: “Most conservatives know when they come to Washington that it is a sewer; the trouble is too many of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.
   
LewRockwell.com
April 4, 2003
The Great Purge
by Christopher Manion
(...)
Veteran conservative author Stan Evans coined a phrase in the dawn of the Reagan years, as he observed all the newly minted “Reaganauts” coming to Washington. “Conservatives who come to Washington know it is a sewer,” he said; “the trouble is, most of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.”
(...)
Blissfully ignorant of all this, a couple of weeks ago one of Washington’s champion hot-tubbers penned a story for National Review.
 
The Daily Bellwether
Friday, March 02, 2007
GOP Guru Richard Viguerie: Republican Hot Tubbers And Crooks Hold Office
CINCINNATI (TBB)—Fundraising mastermind Richard A. Viguerie told CPAC that the Republican Party he loved has become immoral, corrupt and hooked on power. “When most of the Congressional Republicans first ran for office, they ran against the sewer that Washington had become. But after a few years in Washington most of them act like they’ve discovered that Washington isn’t a sewer after all—it’s a hot tub.”
     
The LRC Blog
More Lies From the Elephant in the Hot Tub
Posted by Christopher Manion on May 3, 2010 01:11 PM
Long ago (on February 1, 1993), the Washington Post wrote that evangelical Americans are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” No one has taken that observation to heart like the GOP’s trough-dwellers, who have used and abused the “religious right” and social conservatives in general for decades.
 
So it shouldn’t surprise us that the Hot Tub Party (the GOP’s DC “leadership”) has lied once more, this time to James Dobson, an influential evangelical broadcaster.
 
The LRC Blog
Tsunami in the GOP Hot Tub?
Posted by Christopher Manion on May 5, 2010 07:22 AM
Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky and Senate Minority Leader, is afraid — very afraid — that Dr. Rand Paul might soon be unplugging the GOP trough (from the outside, of course).
   
Washington (DC) Times
BOOK REVIEW: How they came to their opinions
By W. James Antle III
6:15 p.m., Tuesday, September 28, 2010
PROUD TO BE RIGHT: VOICES OF THE NEXT CONSERVATIVE GENERATION
Edited and with an introduction by Jonah Goldberg
Harper, $15.99, 247 pages
(...)
M. Stanton Evans, a teacher of many young conservatives, famously observed that many people on the right come to the nation’s capital believing it’s a sewer only to end up treating it like a hot tub.
   
The LRC Blog
Obama Is Counting on Jeb Bush
Posted by Christopher Manion on August 4, 2011 08:59 AM
One need not blame Jeb Bush for his brother to notice that he, too, believes in “Big Government Conservatism” — or, more likely, just Big Government. His celebration of the monstrous “No Child Left Behind Act” spews the usual palaver, but there is a message here (don’t bother looking for a moral): The GOP’s rich, influential Hot Tub wing will fight to the death to defend its entrenched power from the Tea Party, inspired by Ron Paul to cleanse the Augean Stables with a disciplined, thorough, and bipartisan spirit.
(...)
Gerald Ford and Bob Michel, House Republican leaders who loved being in the minority, are heroes to the GOP Hot-Tubbers. They know that, even in the minority, they will get their share of the plunder. But a Tea Party majority will shut everybody’s water off, and a hot tub gets smelly real fast without a fresh supply. Yes, they oppose Obama — but they “hate” the Tea Party.
 
Obama is counting on them. He wants the Hot Tubbers to make the Tea Party so mad that it goes Third Party, which will guarantee the nation four more years of Obamanism.
 
TPM Livewire
Palin: DC Pols Treat ‘Cesspool’ Like A ‘Jacuzzi’
FEBRUARY 11, 2012, 5:11 PM EST
At her CPAC speech Sarah Palin weighed in on politicians who come to Washington decrying it as a “cesspool” but who “after a year or two” decide, “this isn’t a cesspool; it’s a hot tub!”
 
“We have to drain the jacuzzi,” she told the cheering crowd.
   
American Thinker
November 6, 2014
What Comes Next?
By Bill Kassel
(...)
As for conservatives, the old joke, oft repeated, is sadly applicable: They come to Washington believing it’s a cesspool, but soon discover it’s really a Jacuzzi.