Sleaze-hit Republicans will recover: White House
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush's Republicans have suffered from sleaze revelations but will bounce back in elections next year, a top White House aide said Sunday after a senator's sex-scandal resignation.
"I think we have suffered," Bush's senior counselor Ed Gillespie said on Fox News.
"In the last election (for Congress) in 2006 we saw damage to the GOP brand when it came to ethics," he said, referring to the Republican party's Grand Old Party nickname.
Republican Senator Larry Craig, who represented the western state of Idaho for 27 years, said Saturday that he was resigning following his June arrest for allegedly soliciting sex with an undercover policeman in an airport bathroom.
The announcement was strongly encouraged by national Republican leaders, worried that the scandal would taint all candidates from the socially conservative party in the 2008 White House and congressional elections.
Gillespie said Republicans would "vigorously promote an ethics agenda" and stressed, "I think that we will not have candidates who have any kind of ethical considerations that will be a concern to the voters come 2008."
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, extracting political capital out of the Craig scandal, said neither of the main parties was "without its blemishes" but that only the Democrats were serious about ethics reform in Congress.
Some critics have accused Republican leaders of orchestrating a witch-hunt against Craig, forcing him out in the knowledge that Idaho's Republican governor can fill his Senate seat temporarily with another party member.
Another Republican, David Vitter, has apologized after his name was found in the phone book of a Washington escort service run by the "DC Madam." But the Louisiana senator has not come under nearly as much pressure to resign.
Louisiana has a Democratic governor, and Vitter's departure would strengthen the Democrats' razor-thin Senate majority over the Republicans of 51-49.
Gillespie denied charges of double-standards levied against the Republicans over their handling of Craig, an ardent opponent of gay marriage and an outspoken critic of sexual improprieties by other politicians.
"The fact is that Senator Craig pled guilty to a crime and, therefore, was convicted of a crime," he said.
"Senator Vitter has not been charged with a crime or let alone convicted of one. So there's a pretty big distinction here."
One Republican senator, Arlen Specter, held out hope of a surprise comeback by Craig, noting that his Idaho colleague's resignation was not planned to take effect for another 30 days.
"I'd like to see Larry Craig go back to court, seek to withdraw his guilty plea and fight the case," Specter said, arguing that "on the evidence, Senator Craig wouldn't be convicted of anything."
Craig has said he did nothing wrong and insisted he only entered a plea deal in a bid to cover up an embarrassing incident. He denies sending sexual signals to the undercover officer, when their feet allegedly touched under the partition of two bathroom stalls.
