It’s a classic tale: Man becomes senator. Man allegedly seeks sex in a bathroom in Minneapolis airport. Man is arrested. Man pleads guilty to lewd conduct. Man apologizes and says he shall resign.

What’s the twist this time?

Now Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has reversed in his toe-tapping tracks and says he will not step down from the Senate and will fight to clear his name. But he has filed paperwork to reverse his guilty plea. Even the highly-respected Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn) is standing at Craig’s side.

“I accept what Sen. Craig has said, that he was not undertaking any lewd or lascivious act, and I think it’s very important to give him a chance to state his case,” Specter said during a press conference last week, insisting that Craig needs to fight to clear his name.

But even if Craig has his plea reversed and is cleared of all charges, the majority of people will remember Craig as the Republican senator that was caught looking for sex in an airport bathroom. His obituary may even bring it up. His legacy is now tied to that event, and he can never escape it.

Most of all, Craig has become yet another distraction for the Republican Party. It seems that the GOP is constantly facing one scandal after another. And as this happens, more and more people are becoming disenfranchised with the Republican Party.

The Republican Party is a party of family values, but here is a senator allegedly seeking both homosexual and casual sex in an airport bathroom. Family values indeed. What message is Craig sending to the voters that elected him into office?

Gov. Schwarzenegger was right when he said, “If our party doesn’t address the needs of the people, the needs of Republicans themselves - the voters, registered Republicans included, will look elsewhere for their political affiliation,” at a GOP dinner on September 7.

The Republican Party needs to reconnect with their roots. They need to start again. A permanent majority is a great idea, but when that, now former, majority keeps leaking corruption and scandals into the open, you need to start again. Try something new.

The Republicans have shown time and time again that they are out of touch with the rest of the country. The voters finally made that clear in the 2006 elections when the Democratic Party won back the House and Senate.

It’s time for the GOP to wake up and get back on track. The first step is to have Craig resign and try to win his seat in an election with a new candidate that doesn’t fool around, in a stall or elsewhere. If they don’t, the dream of the permanent majority will become a reality, but this time the Democrats will be in control.