{"id":12723,"date":"2007-08-31T09:45:20","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T13:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12723.html"},"modified":"2007-08-31T09:45:20","modified_gmt":"2007-08-31T13:45:20","slug":"craigs-conundrum-day-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/craigs-conundrum-day-five\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig’s conundrum — Day Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN is reporting<\/a> this morning, “Several well-placed GOP sources in Washington and Idaho have told CNN that embattled Republican Sen. Larry Craig is likely to resign soon, possibly as early as Friday. A GOP source with knowledge of the situation told CNN’s Dana Bash that the Republican National Committee was poised to take the extraordinary step of calling on Craig to resign.”<\/p>\n

It looks like the audio recording<\/a> of the police interview at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport didn’t help matters. Craig (R-Idaho) is heard alluding to what he perceived as “entrapment<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

LC: I don’t, ah, I am not gay, I don’t do these kinds of things and…<\/p>\n

DK: It doesn’t matter, I don’t care about sexual preference or anything like that. Here’s your stuff back sir. Urn, I don’t care about sexual preference.<\/p>\n

LC: I know you don’t. You’re out to enforce the law.<\/p>\n

DK: Right.<\/p>\n

LC: But you shouldn’t be out to entrap people either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What an odd thing to say. “Entrapment”? If the officer told Craig, “You know, if you’re interested in gay bathroom sex, go into the stall, rub the foot of the guy next you, and reach under the partition,” and then Craig did those things, that<\/i> would be entrapment. None of that happened, of course. The officer, Dave Karsnia, didn’t encourage Craig at all.<\/p>\n

In fact, “entrapment,” if Craig knows what it means, is almost an admission, isn’t it? One can certainly make a reasonable argument that what Craig did was legal, and the arrest in this situation was entirely unwarranted, but to say he was entrapped is to suggest he was tricked<\/i> by the police into pursuing the guy in the next stall.<\/p>\n

It’s not the kind of thing that will help Craig’s case, at least as far as the politics goes. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) turned up the heat a bit yesterday afternoon, calling Craig’s conduct “unforgivable<\/a>.”
\n
\nThe Washington Times highlighted<\/a> the political climate.<\/p>\n

Sen. Larry E. Craig was free-falling in Idaho opinion polls and getting excoriated on talk-radio shows as the state’s largest paper yesterday called for his resignation over a sex scandal.<\/p>\n

“He’s in trouble,” said an Idaho Republican Party official. “There is zero interest in his running for re-election and [Mr. Craig’s previous supporters] want this over with now.”<\/p>\n

Elected officials and political aides in Idaho saw similarly grim prospects for the state’s long-serving and well-liked Republican senator, who pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge associated with soliciting homosexual sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.<\/p>\n

“Idahoans are sad and in shock. They are staying respectfully silent,” said a Republican political aide, who, like others close to Mr. Craig, did not want to be named discussing the senator’s downfall.<\/p>\n

“He’s been here forever and people have benefited from his service,” the aide said. “But they are saying, ‘This has to come to an end. [Mr. Craig], you need to resign.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Moreover, several readers have asked me about whether a Democratic candidate could make a serious run for this seat next year, and if there’s a credible Dem in the mix. Idaho is as “red” a state as you’ll find, but Larry LaRocco, a former two-term congressman from Idaho, is gearing up for a competitive campaign. He had a strong piece<\/a> in the Huffington Post yesterday.<\/p>\n

I have [a] job that will last from now until Election Day — and that’s to tell everyone that the conventional wisdom about Idaho is wrong. Yes, the ultra-conservatives have been dominant here for more than a decade. But it wasn’t that long ago — in the early 1990s, in fact — that Idaho elected Democrats on a regular basis. I was one of them. And although Idaho narrowly missed sending another Democrat to Congress last year, the state’s voters did elect six new Democratic state legislators (including one in Idaho Falls, which had not elected a Democrat for decades) and came very close in three state senate races. The pendulum is swinging here, too, like in Montana and Colorado.<\/p>\n

I entered this race not knowing who my Republican opponent would be. I still don’t know. But I don’t care. I wake up every day believing in myself and working hard — because I know now that’s what families across Idaho and across our nation do, day after day. People want integrity and accountability. People want a new direction. Most of all, people want results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN is reporting this morning, “Several well-placed GOP sources in Washington and Idaho have told CNN that embattled Republican Sen. Larry Craig is likely to resign soon, possibly as early as Friday. A GOP source with knowledge of the situation told CNN’s Dana Bash that the Republican National Committee was poised to take the extraordinary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}