Top 10 Republican sex scandals of the decade (photos)

Gay marriage opponent Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in 2007 for lewd conduct with a man in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. (Getty Images)

Since Viagra was patented in 1996, sex scandals among politicians have been on the rise -- especially among Republicans, who ironically cast themselves as the "family values" party. Among politicians caught with their pants down, the GOP outnumbers Democrats 3 to 1, by most counts.

Don't get us wrong. Democrats have committed some doozies during the poast 10 years. Former presidential hopeful John Edwards of North Carolina is one of the worst offenders. He had an affair and allegedly fathered a child with a campaign staffer while his wife was deathly ill with cancer.

But in terms of sheer volume, Republicans win the sex scandal race of the decade by a landslide. Here are our top 10 picks, by year:

2002: Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, became an international hero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks but he was a goat to his wife, Donna Hanover, because his mistress, Judith Nathan, was by his side for every photo op. Their affair had been splashed all over the tabloids the year before, so the mayor just admitted it and carried on as though he weren't married. Senior city officials said Guiliani provided a city car for Nathan's private use and allowed her to use a police driver as her personal chauffeur. Giuliani and Nathan are now married.

2004: Jack Ryan dropped out of the Illinois senate race against Barack Obama after divorce papers surfaced in which his ex-wife, Jeri Ryan, complained that he took her to sex clubs and tried to force her to have sex with him in front of other patrons. He blamed the media, but he was not even close to Obama in the polls, even before the sex scandal erupted.

2005: Don Sherwood (R-Pa.) was forced to admit to a five-year affair with Cynthia Ore after a Consitutiion Party opponent released a 2004 police report in which the congressman was accused of choking his mistress at his Washington D.C. apartment. In 2006, Sherwood lost his seat to Chris Carney, the first Democrat to represent the 10th district since 1960.

2006: Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who introduced a bill to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children when he was caught sending sexuality explicit messages and emails to underage male pages. He was forced to resign and later came out as gay. He is now selling real estate.

2007: David Vitter (R-La.), who has argued for ethics reform throughout his career, was exposed as a former client of "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey's prostitution ring.  She even called him during roll-call votes. The conservative Senator also was a regular at a New Orleans brothel according to the madam who ran it. Vitter admitted to "very serious sin" but said God and his wife had forgiven him. He is still a member of the U.S. Senate.

2007: Larry Craig (R-Idaho), who once called former President Bill Clinton "a naughty boy" for his Oval Office tryst with Monica Lewinsky, was arrested for lewd conduct with another man in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Craig did not resign from the U.S. Senate, but he did not seek reelection in 2008. He  voted against same-sex marriage rights and continues to adamantly deny being gay despite evidence of man-on-man liaisons and innuendo dating back to 1967.

2008: Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) was thrown out of a bar, arrested for drunk driving, locked up in jail, and then bailed out by his mistress -- retired Air Force officer Lt. Col. Laura Fay. He denied the affair but finally had to admit he was the father of Fay's 3-year old child. Fossella served out his term in the House, which ended in January 2009, but did not seek reelection.

2009: John Ensign (R-Nev.), a Christian conservative who once said he would have resigned if he were in Larry Craig's position, turned a tawdry affair with campaign staffer Cynthia Hampton into a possible crime when he did not report paying her and her husband $96,000 to go away. The husband, Doug Hampton, worked for Ensign as a Senate aide. He said Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) encouraged Ensign to end the affair and compensate the couple so they could relocate. The case is still under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.

2009: Mark Sanford, Republican governor of  South Carolina, took off for five days in June without telling anyone where he was, finally said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but turned out to be in Argentina visiting mistress María Belén Chapur on the taxpayers' dime. Sanford, who formerly represented his state's 1st Congressional District in Congress, humiliated his wife, Jenny Sanford, by blubbering to the press about Chapur being his "soul mate."  Efforts to impeach him were voted down in committee. His wife filed for divorce in December.

2009: Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda), a married family-values crusader who represented his Orange County district in the California State Assembly, inadvertently broadcast explicit remarks about his sexual conquests over an open microphone during a lull in a hearing in July. He resigned in September after a video of his lewd comments was posted on the Internet. The video describes in lurid detail women he had sex with, including one who appeared to be a lobbyist with business before the utilities committee on which Duvall sat as vice chairman.

 See the cast of characters in the slideshow below: