Why did Republican Mitt Romney challenge his own party to ''put our own house in order''?

Well for starters, you've got a few scandals in their midst (Craig, Foley, Vitter, Stevens, Cunningham, etc.), also the Republican Party has strayed so far away from their tenets as of late; (Small government and fiscal responsibility) so he is right in saying that Republicans need to put their own house in order, especially if they ever hope to win the 2008 election.