The G.O.P was struck by another ill-timed scandal, as it was revealed to the media on Aug. 27 that Larry Craig, senator from Idaho and one of two senate liaisons for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, had pleaded guilty earlier that month to misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges stemming from a sex-sting operation in a Minneapolis airport restroom. This is the latest in a string of G.O.P ethics scandals to have broken over the past year and the second to involve an individual with direct ties to G.O.P presidential campaigns.

Sen. Craig was arrested in June as part of a police sting operation targeted to prevent the solicitation of homosexual sex in the airport restrooms. According to the police reports, an officer was stationed undercover in one of the bathroom stalls attempting to encourage solicitations for sexual activity. The senator entered a toilet next to the officer and proceeded to tap the officer’s foot with his own, finally sweeping his hand under the stall. The officer then flashed his badge under the divider and proceeded to arrest Craig.

Craig later submitted a guilty plea to the Hennepin County District Court affirming his culpability, where it was confirmed and filed on Aug. 8.

It was not until Aug. 27 that the story came to light, with news of the guilty plea being published by the Congressional newspaper Roll Call. Within four days, Craig had been asked to step down from his committee positions and was no longer working for the Romney Campaign. On Sept. 1, he announced his tenuous resignation at the end of the month, but in recent days has come out with a much more aggressive posture, stating that he plans on fighting any ethics charges leveled against him. Furthermore, Craig has stated through his lawyers that if they can get a judge to throw out the guilty plea, there would be no obstacle to Craig retaining his seat for the remaining 16 months of his term. This reversal in stance has caused further consternation among the party elite, eager to put the incident behind them and get it out of the headlines. It appears unlikely, though, that he would seek to regain his office at the end of his term. As a former chief of staff and Craig family friend George C. Casey revealed to the New York Times, “What he is trying to do is to get the maximum leverage to clear his name for himself and his family, as a human being, and that’s the plan he has.”
This crisis comes less than a year after another prominent G.O.P sex scandal in which Rep. Mark Foley resigned after a series of explicit IM conversations between himself and underage male pages were made public and it was revealed that he had been having inappropriate relations with underage members of his staff. In addition to Foley, several other prominent Republicans have been caught violating the various ethics standards they claim to champion (both Foley and Craig supported bans on gay marriage and Foley spearheaded various anti-child-pornography initiatives). Thomas Ravenel, former South Carolina state treasurer and Rudy Giuliani’s campaign manager in South Carolina, was indicted for possession of cocaine less than a month after Craig’s arrest. Following that, Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, was identified in July as a client of the Washington prostitution ring operated by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, aka the “DC Madam.”
To be sure, the bad behavior is not limited to the right side of the aisle. Prominent democratic donor Norman Hsu, who made sizable contributions to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, was arrested earlier this week on fraud charges. It appears that Hsu had outstanding warrants for his arrest stemming from several investment schemes he had executed over 10 years ago. Both campaigns are donating to charities the funds they received from Hsu. However, the Democrats are not in the same political bind as the Republicans, and violations such as the Hsu scandal are unlikely to affect the outcome of the 2008 elections in a prominent way.

At a time when the Republican Party is struggling to reconcile an unpopular war, mounting immigration concerns and an unstable financial market, it would seem logical to turn to the moral base of the Republican identity that Ronald Reagan forged in the 1980s and George W. Bush rode to victory in 2000 and again in 2004. However, as the ethics violations mount, to do so may come across as increasingly hypocritical to voters who are quickly becoming disgusted with the “culture of corruption” that has been revealed over the course of Bush’s second term in office. It seems that with the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales earlier this summer and the failure to forge any significant consensus on the immigration issue, the Bush administration is starting to feel its lame duck status.

These new scandals, however, go beyond the current administration. Both Craig and Ravenel have strong ties to G.O.P presidential hopefuls, and several Republicans have had to return funds donated to them by Foley’s campaign. To voters, this could appear to be a sign that the corruption and hypocrisy goes beyond the current administration and that the party itself is seriously in jeopardy of losing its coherence and legitimacy.

Sources of Information:
All information and quotes were obtained from one or more of the following sources

New York Times (directly quoted)
The Nation
The Washington Post