Larry Craig, the Democrats' Best Friend

The GOP hustled the Idaho senator off the stage as soon as news of his arrest in a Minneapolis airport men’s room came to light. But Craig isn’t going gently. The fallout could help the Dems win the White House next year.

By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Updated: 58 minutes ago

Sept. 5, 2007 - George Soros, the billionaire currency speculator, thinks he can save America by spending his pocket change to elect Democrats. OK, George, here’s an idea: pay Sen. Larry Craig’s legal bills. While you’re at it, bankroll one of the “independent spending” efforts (you have done it before) to tell the whole sad Craig story, and more, to Republican evangelical voters.

I wasn’t ready to conclude that 2008 is going to be a Democratic year, but the metastasizing Craig saga is tempting me to abandon my reporter’s caution. Sometimes in American politics, you can’t make the stuff up: a Republican conservative stalwart, sworn enemy of gay rights, nabbed in a men’s room stall in the very city in which the GOP plans to hold its presidential convention!

If the Democrats handle this right—and of course there is no assurance that they will—they could weaken the GOP’s “values voter” base just enough to win the White House. Yes, even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, lugging the baggage of her husband’s Oval Office history, could benefit.

I have to laugh at some of my brethren who claim that evangelical and born-again voters weren’t the pivotal factor in the 2004 election. Take another look at the exit polls. They were 23 percent of the electorate—and they voted by a 78-21 percent margin for President Bush over Sen. John Kerry. The top issue in the campaign, according to the polls, wasn’t Iraq; it was “moral values.” Those identifying values as their most important issue voted 80-20 for Bush.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20607392/site/newsweek/from/RS.5/

I don't know whether to laugh or cry - but I enjoy the Craig show anyway.

to "catapult the propaganda" like the Bush-Republicans do, that's why these self-inflicted GOP scandals can do their work for them.

See a tongue-in-cheek visual of Senator Craig taking a new stance...here:

www.thoughttheater.com