Craig Backs Away From Trying to Hold Seat
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and DUFF WILSON
The New York Times
All right! I hear you snickering at the above headline. But SOMEBODY actually got paid to write it. - JS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - The political and personal drama of Senator Larry E. Craig took another turn today as a spokesman for the Idaho Republican said the senator has all but abandoned the notion of trying to finish his term.
“The most likely scenario, by far, is that by October there will be a new senator from Idaho,” Mr. Craig’s chief spokesman, Dan Whiting, told The Associated Press.
Mr. Whiting said the senator would try to complete his term only if his guilty plea for disorderly conduct in connection with a sex sting can be voided by Sept. 30 and if the Republican leadership agrees to restore Mr. Craig to the committee leadership posts from which he was recently ousted.
Legal experts have said Mr. Craig’s chances of getting his guilty plea set aside are slim, and the senator’s prospects of getting his committee posts back would seem all but impossible, given Republican leaders- eagerness to see Mr. Craig exit public life.
It was not immediately clear if Mr. Whiting’s comments this morning reflected a new sense of pessimism, or reality, by Mr. Craig, and what might have prompted the senator to shift his stance since Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Mr. Craig took new steps to clear his name in Washington and in Minnesota, where he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. Mr. Craig’s efforts, including a suggestion that he might not resign at the end of the month as he had announced, infuriated Republican Senate leaders who thought they had contained the political damage from his case.
In a sign of how quickly his colleagues have turned against him, the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday swiftly rejected a request by Mr. Craig’s lawyers to dismiss the complaints against him, and Republican leaders moved to fill his leadership positions on three committees.
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