From The Associated Press, 8/30/07:
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-republican-woes,0,6485127.story
GOP Reeling From Money and Sex Scandals
By DAVID ESPO | AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON -
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First came the disclosure that Louisiana Sen. David Vitter's telephone
number was listed in the records of an escort service.
Then Sen. Ted Stevens' home in Alaska was raided by federal agents as
part of a corruption investigation.
Now Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho is recanting a guilty plea that grew out
of a police undercover operation in an airport men's room, adding, "I
am not gay" for emphasis.
"This is a serious matter," said the Senate Republican leadership, an
understatement for the ages.
No doubt, none of this has been good for what some Republicans like to
call "the brand."
Craig "represents the Republican Party," Rep. Pete Hoekstra said on
Wednesday, a frank acknowledgment that the party may suffer,
regardless of the Idaho senator's political fate.
"I think it's important for Republicans to step out right now and say,
'No, this behavior is not going to be tolerated,'" Hoekstra added.
Depending on how far that attitude extends, it would mark a change
from the recent past, when House Republicans were slow to respond to
the scandal spawned by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Democrats capitalized on voter dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq
last fall, but they also campaigned on a platform of ending what they
called a "culture of corruption."
It was a task made immeasurably easier by the imprisonment of former
Rep. Bob Ney, the indictment of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay and
the resignation of former Rep. Mark Foley, the Floridian who
acknowledged writing salacious e-mails to an underage male House page
Not that Democrats are without scandal.
But they moved quickly in the House to punish Rep. William Jefferson
of Louisiana last year, stripping him of his committee assignment even
before he was indicted in a corruption investigation.
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Harry
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