Former Majority Leader Trent Lott must be smiling from ear to ear these days as he savors a bit of political revenge.
Bob Novak reports that Lott is debating to run again and Republican bigwigs are urging him to do so out of fears that if he doesn’t it could mean control of the Senate. 2005 must have been a particularly sweet year for Lott, as he watched his replacement Senator Bill Frist under constant fire for a series of political miscalculations, Senate defeats and questions about his financial dealings:
Trent Lott within the next week plans to decide between seeking a fourth term in the U.S. Senate from Mississippi or retiring from public life. That could determine whether Republicans keep control of the Senate in next year’s elections. For the longer range, Lott’s retirement and replacement could signal that Southern political realignment has peaked and now is receding.
Mississippi, one of the reddest of the red Republican states, has not even been on the game board of the Washington analysis forecasting the 2006 Senate outcome. But in Mississippi, prominent Republicans are worried sick. They believe Lott will probably retire. If so, they expect the new senator will be a Democrat, former state Attorney General Mike Moore. Republican politicians in Mississippi believe Rep. Chip Pickering, the likely Republican nominee if Lott does not run, cannot defeat Moore.
Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman pleaded with Lott last week to run again. The senator was as blunt with this emissary from President Bush as he was with me. “Where is our vision and our agenda?” he asked. The malaise afflicting the Bush administration not only threatens a Senate seat in Mississippi but impacts Lott’s decision whether to retire.
As Novak notes (with notably more loaded political language then we’ll offer here), it is ironic that GWB is pleading with him to stay on. Lott lost his Senate majority leader’s post when top GOPers and Bush didn’t defend him from charges that a comment Lott made a Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday was racist. It’s no secret Lott was stung and this year on various occasions he has he fired various pointed but just-subtle-enough potshots at Frist and the GOP leadership in general.
Novak notes that GOPers are telling Lott that he he MUST run for the good of the party — and if he wants to sleep at night:
Republicans pressing Lott to run say that if he retires, he will have to live the rest of his life under the burden of giving the Democrats a Senate seat and perhaps control of the Senate out of personal pique that he no longer was majority leader. But Lott has not been sulking in his tents for three years. He has been an active presence on the Senate floor and has made the most of his meager power base as Senate Rules Committee chairman.
The most tantalizing part of the Novak report is this:
Lott wonders what his senatorial role would be beginning his fourth term at age 65 without a leadership position or significant committee chairmanship. Sen. John McCain has urged Lott to return as leader of Senate Republicans (succeeding Bill Frist, who is leaving the Senate). But that would require an aggressive campaign against Majority Whip Mitch McConnell that Lott is not inclined to pursue.
Meanwhile, the AP says Lott and his family are pondering this right now:
Lott says he and his family planned to sit down during the holidays to decide whether he will run for re-election in 2006. He recently told The Sun Herald: “I won’t be complicating anybody’s Christmas by making a decision” before the first of the year.
Candidates’ qualifying deadline is March 1. Party primary elections are June 6. The general election is Nov. 7.
That will give Lott enough time to savor GOP leaders who weren’t there for him urging him to be there for them. What will he do? It’s hard to imagine a Lott less Congress. But it does sound as if he wants to move on. Stay tuned…….
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.