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.
Source
By Robert Novak
Dec 26, 2005
WASHINGTON — 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.
LOTT TO RETIRE?
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.
A Bush entreaty now to Lott is ironic. Lott was driven out of the Senate majority leader’s chair after the 2002 elections when the president refused to defend him from calumnies that a harmless jocular remark on the late Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday was racist in nature. Lott’s recently published memoir (“Herding Cats”) reveals he was deeply hurt by Bush’s non-support.
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.
When Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison last week urged Lott to stay, he reminded her she too had pondered before deciding to run again in Texas next year. He said a six-year Senate term poses a major undertaking, adding that he considered not running for his third term in 2000 when he was still majority leader. His personal financial condition has deteriorated since then with the loss of half his net worth when Hurricane Katrina swept away his home at Pascagoula, Miss.
“The hurricane is what has made this decision difficult for me,” Lott told me. On the one hand, “the performance by the administration has been poor and the Congress has not been a lot better.” On the other hand, “my people need all the help I can give them.” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has pointed to Lott’s role in guiding the Katrina tax relief package through the Senate, declaring: “This shows why Mississippi and the country need Trent Lott to be re-elected next year.”
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 Sen. 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.
Mississippi Republicans are so anxious about a Lott-less election next year partly because Democrat Moore is a better known, more appealing figure in the state than Republican Pickering. The state’s big African-American minority continues to increase, and politically potent trial lawyers will be unrestrained on behalf of Moore. Finally, the performance by the Republican-controlled national government in coping with Katrina is no asset for Republican candidates in Mississippi.
When George W. stood aside while Trent Lott was tossed out, I wrote on Dec. 23, 2002, that the secret liberal theme behind his defenestration was that “the GOP’s Southern base, the bedrock of its national election victories, is an illegitimate legacy from racist Dixiecrats.
Now, three years later, that bedrock may be eroding.
Yikes, with all the treason and exposure of national secrets by liberals to our enemies I shudder to think what a democrat controlled Sentate would be like. May as well give Al-Queda non-profit status and let them walk free around the U.S.
It’s like liberals want us to be attacked soo badly that they will do everything in their power to help. They warn al-queda about bin laden’s cell phone and now they tell them where not to hide the nuclear materials because the government might find it.
Right Thinker,
You are assuming that Moore from Mississippi would be soft on terrorism.
Since most Democrats are soft on terrorism I am going by what the Party does, not what it says. With Harry “Muhamad” al-Reid as my Senator, you can see why I have little faith in the Democratic party to keep my family safe. Now that the New York Times is working for Al-Queda, I am especially suspicious of Democrats.
Maybe we should be checking the NYT building for radiation and anthrax….
What do you consider keeping your family safe?
The Republican answer to keeping my family safe as I understand it is:
-Allowing the President (if Republican) to act as a dictator rather than the leader of a free nation
-Pumping billions into a missile defense sheild that will most likely never work, while also cutting taxes for the most wealthy among us
-Using the national stage to promote fear within the populace, while saying next to nothing about education or how we as a nation plan to compete in the global market
-Passing legislation to bar Americans who have been injured or killed by products sold by corporations to sue for damages
-Ignoring the growing threat of climate change, which leads to higer corporate profits and more situations like we saw in New Orleans in years to come
-Ignoring the growing need to cut our reliance on foreign oil, while also looking the other way as our auto industry becomes more irrelevant by the day
I could obviously go on and on, but after five years of Bush and a GOP controlled Congress, all of these matters have just gotten worse. To a political person on the right today, the only thing that seems relevant at all is the notion that terrorists are going to kill us all.
For every word that is spoken about the actual work of governing a nation as large as ours is, ten are uttered by Republicans about national defense.
Now the President and anyone he employs can simply ignore the law for the sake of national defense…the most ridiculous horseshit this country has tossed around in quite a long time. These same people who felt it was appropriate to bog down Clinton’s Presidency over whether or not he lied about having an affair with Lewinski, these same people who wanted him impeached for pergury, now argue that President Bush can rule like a dictator and ignore whatever law he doesn’t want to abide by.
And it’s because if he doesn’t, we’ll all be dead. Sure…and Clinton’s extramarital affairs were more crucial to our nation than any of this.
It’s about winning an argument, nothing more.
Terrorists do want to kill Americans ! And they have already done it !
Paul, being attacked doesn’t turn us into China all of a sudden. Pretending that because of 9/11 we need to turn the Presidency into a Dictatorship is absolute nonsense.
The threat may be real, but we pay people to deal with all of that. You and I pay more than 50% of each federal tax dollar for defense.
-Allowing the President (if Republican) to act as a dictator rather than the leader of a free nation
Hmmm…I’ve never connected a dictatorship as someone who gathers intelligence on foreign enemies in order to protect citizens of the country who elected him to office with the express desire that he protect them from these foreign enemies.
-Pumping billions into a missile defense sheild that will most likely never work, while also cutting taxes for the most wealthy among us
Most likely is the term used when something can’t be proven. While a missile shield may not be cool now it may be very necessary in the future. Also, the tax thing increases jobs and lowers prices to the consumer.
-Using the national stage to promote fear within the populace, while saying next to nothing about education or how we as a nation plan to compete in the global market
First he has his head in the sand ignoring reality and now he’s talking too much about a real problem. On education, Democrats have made it clear that they inctend to obstruct anything social responsible so can you really blame Bush? Tax cuts help us compete in the global market.
-Passing legislation to bar Americans who have been injured or killed by products sold by corporations to sue for damages
Are you talking about frivilous lawsuits here? While I agree with compensating the families of those who die from a product but I am against the “winning the lottery” mentality of those out to game the system.
-Ignoring the growing threat of climate change, which leads to higer corporate profits and more situations like we saw in New Orleans in years to come
There is no proof that we are causing climate change. At one time there was soo much oxygen in the atmosphere a lightning strike would set the air itselfon fire. At another time there was so little oxygen, nothing could live out of the water. The planet runs itself no matter how much the egotists of the environmental lobby think humans have so much control.
-Ignoring the growing need to cut our reliance on foreign oil, while also looking the other way as our auto industry becomes more irrelevant by the day
Remember that desolate, lifeless place in Alaska dubbed ANWR that the liberals keep the oil companies out of? .01% of the area would be affected but it would destry the earth to hear the Democrats talk about it. When did the auto industry become OUR industry? Maybe high taxes had something to do with it….
Now the President and anyone he employs can simply ignore the law for the sake of national defense
When did that happen? There is no basis in fact for the law breaking claim unless it is lumped into things like the “illegal” war in Iraq or the “illegal” war on terror or anything else dubbed illegal that the Left doesn’t like. Christianity – illegal, Pro-life – illegal, buying foreign oil – illegal, drilling for our own oil – illegal. Everything is suddenly illegal with no examples of the laws purportedly broken. There has to be a law before it can be broken.
and Clinton’s extramarital affairs were more crucial to our nation than any of this.
Now THERE’s a law breaker. Lying under oath, there is actually a law that says that lying under oath is illegal.
Paul, being attacked doesn’t turn us into China all of a sudden. Pretending that because of 9/11 we need to turn the Presidency into a Dictatorship is absolute nonsense.
I was just talking to someone about how I felt like we were living in a police state, like China, except the police and the state were two separate and opposite entities. Repulican control the senate and presidency but liberals control everything else. I figured the 2nd ammendment would be the first to go but I’m surprised that religion is the first right to die. The President is Christian but would probably be impeached for saying Merry Christmas in public. This is kinda like China, liberal, socialist, communist China.
The Presidency is not being turned into a dictatorship . This is hogwash and you know it ! I am amazed that a man of your intelligence could suggest such a thing !
Paul, I can’t go ahead and circumvent the law for any reason. A police officer can’t just up and decide to enter some house based on suspicion.
The court Bush had to refer to, it was within 72 hours, 3 whole days, and the judges had been known to entertain FBI agents in the middle of the night in their own homes to sign the paperwork.
The trouble was, the law didn’t allow for Bush and his people to snoop on folks who weren’t doing anything wrong, and that got under their skin. Really pissed them off that a law would stand between them and whatever they felt like doing at the time.
We’re a nation of laws. If the war on terror can’t be fought w/in the boundaries of those laws, I’m sure the President could have pointed that out and the REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED CONGRESS could have given him what he needed to get the job done.
He’s just not in favor of our system of government. It has nothing to do with safety or national defense…it’s all about a guy who never liked to work all that much, taking the easy road.
If this were China or Russia, he’d have fit in just fine.
Bull pucky Chris ! I call b…s… !