Opinion: Sen. Craig takes narrower stance over former friend Romney

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Sen. Larry Craig, the toe-tapping Idaho Republican with the wide stance who got himself in big legal and political trouble in that Minneapolis airport men’s room incident last June, is now going toe-to-toe with his former friend, Mitt Romney.

Craig was the Romney campaign’s chief Senate liaison until word exploded in late August that Craig had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a police bathroom sex-sting operation. Romney immediately called his supporter’s behavior ‘disgraceful,’ and Craig left the campaign.

In a taped interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer to be broadcast later this week, Craig says, ‘He not only threw me under his campaign bus. He backed up and ran over me again.’

A Romney spokesman said, ‘Gov. Romney simply believes that a public office is a public trust. He believes when a public official enters a guilty plea, they have broken that public trust and should step aside for the sake of their constituents.’

In the same interview, Craig’s wife, Suzanne, denied their long marriage was a cover for her husband’s rumored homosexuality. Craig too has denied being gay.

Amid the initial furor as colleagues suggested he resign, Craig announced that it was his intent to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30 while he sought to clear his name by withdrawing his disorderly conduct guilty plea in the Minnesota court system. Some wondered at the time about the seemingly unnecessarily careful phrasing. But when Sept. 30 came, Craig said he’d changed his mind and had a new intent: to serve out the rest of his term until January 2009 and then retire. Many of his Republican colleagues would prefer to be rid of the symbol of scandal ASAP. Craig was recently inducted into Idaho’s Hall of Fame.

Craig has since lost his legal bid to withdraw the guilty plea at the county court level, but announced today he was going to take that decision to the Court of Appeals, where legal experts say his chances of success are slim.

--Andrew Malcolm