Craig's future cloudy following Minn. arrest

By JOHN MILLER

Associated Press

BOISE -- U.S. Sen. Larry Craig was forced into the Senate minority by voters, defeated on immigration by colleagues and put on probation for his conduct in an airport restroom. Now analysts predict he'll skip running for a fourth term in 2008.

The 62-year-old Republican was arrested June 11 by a plainclothes officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis airport. On Aug. 8, Craig pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, which includes "offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy conduct."

Craig said Monday he shouldn't have pleaded guilty; others say he shouldn't have waited to react until the incident surfaced Monday in the Washington, D.C.-based newspaper Roll Call.

Earlier this year, Craig said he'd wait until September to announce whether he'd run again. Craig declined to be interviewed for this story.

Craig has spent 27 years in Congress, including the past 17 in the Senate.

The past 10 months have brought political turmoil. First, the GOP lost its majority in both the U.S. Senate and House, forcing Craig from his Veterans Committee chairmanship, and in June, Craig was trounced in his latest bid to pass immigration reform, a stance that alienated many Idaho voters. That was the same month as his arrest.

"Adding this to the mix complicates his decision at best and might cause him to rethink his future in the U.S. Senate," said Jim Weatherby, a professor emeritus at Boise State University who has known Craig since they were students in the late 1960s at the University of Idaho in Moscow.

Craig, who last year backed a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, is married. He has adopted three children from his wife's previous marriage.

Idaho's minority Democratic Party said Craig should have told Idaho voters earlier, instead of nearly three months after the incident.

"The people of Idaho would have been better served if they'd heard this from the senator when it happened, rather than so long after the fact," the Democrats' spokesman, Chuck Oxley, said.

Democrat Larry LaRocco, a former two-term U.S. House member, has declared his 2008 candidacy for Craig's seat.

Two Republicans, Lt. Gov. Jim Risch and elk rancher Rex Rammell, who clashed with Idaho in 2006 after his animals bolted from their pen and were shot by state officials, have said they'll likely run if Craig doesn't.

Jasper LiCalzi, a political science professor at Albertson College of Idaho, said the clock may be ticking on Craig's political career.

Idaho Republicans may try to push him from office, LiCalzi said. If he does leave, it would be up to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter to name a replacement.

"It isn't a question of whether he's going to run again," LiCalzi said. "It's a question of whether he serves out his term."