John Ensign: I Won't Resign
"For the people who want to beat Harry Reid, you'd have a second Senate race [in 2010] and that takes the focus off Harry Reid," Ensign said on conservative radio station KXNT today, according to Politico. He said splitting Republican resources in the 2012 midterms would hurt "the conservative cause."
Reid is expected to face a tough reelection campaign next year, with a poll last month finding that two different Republicans would defeat him if the election had been held then. The survey found Reid's unfavorable rating to be 50 percent.
Ensign is vowing to serve it out his term, which runs until 2012.
Ensign, who said in 2004 that "marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded" and who called fellow Republican Sen. Larry Craig a "disgrace" following Craig's arrest for disorderly conduct in an airport restroom, has acknowledged and apologized for his ninth-month affair with former aide Cindy Hampton. After Cindy Hampton and her husband Doug stopped working for Ensign in April, Ensign's parents gave the couple $96,000.
Doug Hampton said the senator helped him secure jobs in the wake of the affair, and, as Politico notes, he has suggested Ensign "potentially violated federal law by helping arrange a meeting with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for one of Hampton's lobbying clients." The Senate Ethics Committee is looking into the allegation, which Ensign denies."Here's exactly what happened — when I was a veterinarian, when I was in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate, current employees, former employees, I've recommended countless numbers over the years, gotten them jobs, the same thing that I did with Doug Hampton. Recommended him, didn't say, 'Hey, hire him.' The same way I've done for many people over the years," Ensign said.
Before the revelations, Ensign had been considered a rising star in the GOP and a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
"I violated the vows of my marriage. It's absolutely the worst thing I've ever done in my life," Ensign said in admitting the affair in June, after the Hamptons indicated they were going public. (Watch at left.)
Ensign said today that there are "a lot of people running for office next year" who "actually want me to be involved with their campaigns," though he did not name them. He said he would seek "to be helpful without being hurtful."