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National Post (Canada) said:Comment: Values flushed away
Republican Party's advocacy of moral standards takes another hit
Sheldon Alberts, National Post
Published: Thursday, August 30, 2007
So this is what the Republican family-values crowd has been reduced to - playing footsy in airport bathroom stalls, spending late nights in New Orleans brothels and sending dirty e-mails to teenage congressional pages.
Jerry Falwell must be rolling over in his grave.
Idaho Senator Larry Craig's bungled attempt to solicit sex with a police officer at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport has capped an utterly miserable year for the GOP, which built a formidable political franchise on the claim it was the guardian of integrity and moral values in American politics.
That notion took a direct hit last November, when voters handed Democrats the keys to Congress after Republicans endured a string of high-profile GOP corruption and sex scandals.
But rarely has a political party fallen so hard off its own pedestal.
When George W. Bush was campaigning for the White House in 2000, his vow to "restore honour and integrity" in Washington helped mobilize millions of social conservative voters to join his cause.
But Bush's promise has proven easier to make than keep.
Last September, Florida congressman Mark Foley resigned after it was revealed he sent dozens of sexually explicit instant messages to 16-year-old Capitol Hill staffers. In July, Louisiana Senator David Vitter publicly apologized for committing a "very serious sin" after reports he was a client of the so-called D.C. Madam and regularly frequented a New Orleans bordello.
The sex scandals have come hard on the heels of high-profile corruption cases.
Former California congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham was sent to jail in 2006 for accepting a US$2.4-million bribe from defence contractors. GOP "superlobbyist" Jack Abramoff got five years in a fraud and corruption case that landed Ohio Republican congressman Bob Ney in jail for 30 months.
The hits just kept on coming in 2007. White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was found guilty of perjury and, just last month, FBI agents raided the home of veteran Alaska Senator Ted Stevens as part of an ongoing corruption investigation.
If only Republican woes ended there.
In what has already been dubbed the "Brokeback Bathroom" scandal, Craig pleaded guilty in June to disorderly conduct after making lewd advances to an undercover police officer investigating sexual activity in public washrooms.
According to police statements, the 62-year-old former rancher tapped his foot on the floor of his stall, and then ran his hand beneath the partition - gestures apparently common among people soliciting sex in public washrooms.
He compounded his problems after his arrest when he produced a business card identifying himself as a senator and remarked, "What do you think about that?"
Craig's news conference on Tuesday, a day after his conviction became public, only intensified the controversy.
The Senator claimed he had done nothing inappropriate and pleaded guilty only to make the incident "go away." He had his own Bill Clinton "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" moment when he declared: "I am not gay. I never have been gay."
The cumulative impact of the scandals bodes ill for Republican hopes of motivating the party's base - particularly religious conservatives who place a premium on ethical behaviour - ahead of the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.
"These voters were disheartened in 2006 and to the extent integrity issues remains a problem, I think that will depress Republican turnout," says Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar at the University of Texas in Austin. "These issues speak to a substantial portion of the Republican base."
The scandals also make it exponentially more difficult for Republicans to use ethics issues as a weapon against Senator Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination.
Clinton heads into 2008 with more political baggage than any other Democrat.
Already, Democratic opponent John Edwards has linked her to a culture of corruption in Washington, alluding to how the Clintons used to "rent" out the Lincoln Bedroom to big donors when they were in the White House.
But even with the ghosts of Monica Lewinsky, Travelgate and Whitewater haunting Senator Clinton's campaign, political analysts believe Republicans will make ethics and values a campaign issue at their peril.
"I think the Republicans hoped that, if Hillary were the candidate, they might be able to remind voters about the Clinton years and use the integrity issue against the Democrats," says Cal Jillson, a politics professor at Southern Methodist University. "I think that now is off the boards in a dramatic way."
At least one GOP presidential candidate is warning the party against reprising the holier-than-thou theme that worked for Bush in 2000.
"I'm a Republican. I love my party," Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee told late-night comedian Bill Maher last week.
"But we can't have two sets of rules, one for Democrats and one for ourselves."
The comment was taken as a veiled reference to thrice-married GOP presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, whose potential nomination might ensure that Democrats and Republicans call a truce where it pertains to personal foibles.
"There is so much vulnerability on both sides that neither party will be eager to fight the election on that turf," says Buchanan.
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