Craig Voices Doubts on Exit

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Sen. Larry Craig (R) opened the possibility of reversing his stated intention to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30 in a voice mail message obtained by Roll Call that the Idaho conservative inadvertently left at a wrong number.

Craig left the digitally recorded message on the recipient’s mobile phone voice mail Saturday morning, about a half-hour before he announced his intention to resign his Senate seat at month’s end. The message was provided to Roll Call by the phone’s owner, who is a Washington, D.C., resident not involved in politics and is not the person the Senator was trying to reach. Craig discussed his forthcoming announcement more as a strategy to rehabilitate his political fortunes than a statement about his looming departure.

“Yes, Billy, this is Larry Craig calling. You can reach me on my cell. [Sen.] Arlen Specter [R-Pa.] is now willing to come out in my defense, arguing that it appears, by all that he knows, that I’ve been railroaded and all of that,” Craig said on the voice mail. “Having all of that, we’ve reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my ‘intent’ to resign on Sept. 30.

“I think it is very important for you to make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with this afternoon and I would hope you could make it in front of the cameras,” Craig continued. “I think it would help drive the story that I am willing to fight, that I’ve got quality people out there fighting in my defense, and that this thing could take a new turn or a new shape; it has that potential.”

Although it could not be determined who the Senator was trying to reach when he incorrectly dialed the phone number, Craig recently hired Washington, D.C., lawyer Billy Martin, who put out a statement Saturday in support of his new client.

Craig spokesman Dan Whiting confirmed Tuesday that the incoming phone number identified by the cell phone where the voice mail was left is in fact the Senator’s cell number. The cell phone’s owner, who requested anonymity, said Craig’s number has shown up on his phone as a missed call a handful of times over the past several weeks, but said that this was the first time the Senator left a message.

But Whiting dismissed any notion that Craig’s statements on the message suggest that he may be strategizing to clear his name for the purpose of jettisoning his planned resignation and remaining in the Senate. Whiting said Craig delayed his resignation by one month primarily to give his staff time to find other jobs and allow his as-yet-to-be appointed successor to benefit from an orderly transition.

“Larry said what he said on Saturday. He told his staff he intends to resign, and the staff is certainly preparing the office for the next Senator from Idaho,” Whiting said.

Members of Craig’s newly hired crisis-management team have been echoing those sentiments over the past few days.

Still, not everyone is convinced that Craig is leaving. Dennis Mansfield, a Gem State Republican activist who ran for Idaho’s 1st district GOP nomination in 2000, said many Idahoans read Craig’s public remarks Saturday as purposely designed to allow him wiggle room to reverse course if his political standing improves over the next few weeks.

Mansfield, a self-described Craig supporter, said he believes the Senator could regain political strength in Idaho in advance of the Sept. 30 resignation date he set for himself, and cautioned that it is premature to count Craig out.

“I was at the press conference, and I know that when Larry said he intends to resign, that all of us who have any nuanced understanding of language understood he was giving himself 30 days to figure out what to do,” Mansfield said. “He hasn’t lasted 27 years [in Congress] to go down in 27 minutes. I think he should tough it out.”

There were mixed reactions among Republicans Tuesday about the possibility that Craig might rescind his planned resignation, which stemmed from his June arrest in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men’s bathroom sex-sting and his guilty plea last month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.