Lott play hardball

According to some reports, Lott told Bush that if he were forced to resign as Senate Majority Leader, he would resign from the Senate as well. This would allow the MS Dem Governor to appoint his replacement and we would be back at 50-50 with the VP tied down in the Senate and everybody watching Chaffe. I wonder what will happen?

 

Interesting article on several fronts...

1. I don't expect a "Checkers" type speech from Lott on BET.

2. How silly to try and get Colin and Rice to come to the support of Lott.

3. Chaffee's worried about the next Leader being more conservative than Lott. He either has a great sense of humor or he's opening options just in case.

4. As a Dem, I'd be happy with McConnell.

5. It does look like Lott is threatening to turn over his seat to a Dem.
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Bid to Oust Lott From Leadership Considered
Some in GOP Look To Bush for Signal

By Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 15, 2002; Page A01


Several senators contemplated yesterday whether to challenge Trent Lott (Miss.) as majority leader because of his racially divisive comments at a birthday celebration, as some administration officials began expressing reservations about whether he can survive as the chamber's top Republican.

In an indication of White House wariness about getting squarely behind Lott, sources said Lott sought statements of support last week from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell but was rebuffed. Both are African American. Some White House officials said it was clumsy of Lott to ask.

Administration officials said President Bush would be unlikely to intervene to save Lott's job if another Republican challenged him over comments Lott made at a celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). Some officials said Lott's attempt at another apology on Friday was inadequate, and said his appearance in a special broadcast Monday at 8 p.m. on BET, with its largely African American audience, might provide a final chance at redemption.

The White House appears to be hedging its bets. While Bush has not committed to working to rescue Lott, one senior official defended the senator, saying he retains widespread support in the White House. Others believe Lott has become an impediment to the mission of Karl C. Rove, Bush's senior adviser, to make Republicans a permanent majority party through an agenda of compassionate conservatism that appeals to racial minorities and suburban women.

Lott used a news conference on Friday to ask forgiveness and said he had made a "grievous mistake" at the Dec. 5 celebration, where Lott said the country would have fewer problems if then-segregationist Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948.

Several senior GOP officials, who predicted two days ago that Lott would weather the controversy, spoke yesterday of a growing belief he might be ousted as leader by Senate Republicans. These officials said Lott's comments have exploded into a much bigger political fire with broad consequences for the party. "Unfortunately, this is no longer about the words," said a GOP aide.

The only black Republican in Congress, outgoing Rep. J.C. Watts (Okla.), has defended Lott, calling the comments "complimentary humor that often accompanies personal tributes." But even Watts said in an interview Friday that the issue had spiraled into a possible long-term problem for the party.

Still, no Republican senators have called for Lott's resignation, though many conservative commentators and editorial writers have. Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who as the incoming majority whip would be the second-ranking leader, has been working the phones to try to save Lott's job. "I am confident he can and will weather the storm," McConnell said in an interview after talking to a dozen colleagues.

Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, a moderate Republican, told the Providence Journal that Lott's remarks smacked of "stupidity." But he did not call for Lott to step aside because he worries that potential successors might be more conservative. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) told the Associated Press that he hasn't heard of any member planning to call for Lott's resignation.

Some administration officials said Lott lacked the emotion and sincerity Friday that might have helped him. "He didn't do what he needed to do," a senior administration official said. "People were looking for absolute and total contrition, and I don't think they saw that."

Another administration official said, "No one thinks the press conference was successful." That official said White House aides have urged Capitol Hill allies "not to get very far out there defending Lott."

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer disputed those characterizations. "Senator Lott's speech was direct, it was candid, it was properly apologetic and appropriately so," he said. "The president does not think that Senator Lott should resign."

Fleischer said repeatedly last week that Bush did not think Lott should resign. A senior official said the statement was sincere, and that no nuance was intended. But administration officials also said Bush aides had deliberately not addressed the question of whether others in the party should replace Lott, who has been Senate Republican leader since 1996 and was majority leader from 1996 to 2001.

The officials said Bush and his aides believe Democrats are hypocritically exploiting the issue out of partisan opportunism, and that the absence of news from the war on terrorism last week contributed to the focus on Lott. The officials said Bush would oppose any effort by Democrats to undermine Lott.

"If Lott was defending his leadership from Democrats, the president would defend him," said an administration official. "If he had to defend it from within, the president would be reluctant to get involved."

A senior Republican official said the question of whether Bush would defend Lott in a leadership fight "is moot because it appears that he's turning the corner."

Senate sources said allies of Lott have tried to stave off such a challenge by sending the message to colleagues that he would leave the Senate if he lost. McConnell warned in a conference call Friday night that Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) would appoint Lott's successor, presumably a Democrat. That would put the Senate in an even split, 50 seats for each party.

Sources said several senators have been taking the temperatures of their colleagues about whether Lott would be vulnerable to a challenge for his leadership job when Congress convenes Jan. 7.

Several GOP senators are looking to Bush for direction, aides said. The death knell for Lott would be for Bush to publicly call for him to resign, or for the president to contact a GOP senator about challenging Lott. Bush has no plans to do either, White House officials said.

While there's no clear leader in waiting, Republicans said Sen. Don Nickles (Okla.), who is leaving his current post as GOP whip, wants to run for majority leader but is unlikely to challenge Lott unless it becomes clear he can win. Nickles, a fiscal and social conservative who's expected to chair the Budget Committee, has strong support among conservatives.

Nickles has been silent, unlike many senior Republicans who have put out statements defending Lott.

Nickles was highly critical of Lott in the Friday night conference call, in which about 20 GOP senators discussed the fallout from the incoming majority leader's comments, participants said. Nickles did not call for Lott's ouster, however. His allies have made it clear he will run if Lott steps aside.

In the conference call, Sen. Bill Frist (Tenn.), outgoing chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was even more critical of Lott, raising concerns that the controversy will dog the party and that Democrats will keep it alive by offering a censure resolution. But when another senator asked Frist if he believed Lott should resign, he said no, participants said.

McConnell would be a strong contender, though he's closer to Lott than any other GOP senator. McConnell, a feisty conservative who led the charge to defeat the new campaign finance laws, has been aggressively defending Lott.

If Lott were to leave, McConnell would likely run, his friends say.

 

(God, I wish I could edit the title of this thread...)

Sayonara Trent. The death knell has sounded. We'll know where his heart is based on the company he keeps in private life.
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Bush Won't Resist Leadership Change
President's Agenda Feared in Jeopardy

By Mike Allen and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 17, 2002; Page A01


President Bush has decided not to intervene to save Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.) after concluding he has become an albatross to the party and no longer has any chance of surviving as Republican majority leader, administration sources said yesterday.

The White House had hedged about Lott for nearly a week. Yesterday, after Republicans scheduled a vote that could lead to Lott's ouster, administration officials said Bush would not intervene. A Senate aide working to save Lott said Bush's continued silence could amount to a death sentence.

"The president is allowing the process to work itself out in a way that will seem natural and doesn't have a lot of fingerprints on it," a senior Republican official said. "When the inevitable happens, the president can be in a position where he hasn't coerced the process but also hasn't stood by someone who will create problems."

Republicans close to Bush said White House officials fear that the prolonged attention to Lott's racially divisive comments at a recent birthday party could have a devastating effect on party efforts to reach out to minority voters and may make it harder for Bush to win the trust of moderate Democrats for key votes on his agenda.

Another Republican said Lott "has become a walking pinata for Democrats" who would undermine "all the work the president has done to try to eliminate this perception of the party." A third Republican source said White House officials had concluded that Lott's survival was "outside the realm of possibility right now."

"He was not what a forward-looking GOP wanted even before this, but his weight has become insupportable," the source said.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer did not directly spurn Lott yesterday. But asked several times to repeat an endorsement of Lott as majority leader, Fleischer noted that Bush made clear last week "that he found the remarks to be offensive and repugnant."

"Yes or no -- can you say whether the president wants Senator Lott to remain as majority leader?" a reporter asked.

"I go right back to everything that I said last week about the topic and the president's focus on improving race relations throughout America," Fleischer said.

Fleischer said he had not changed his position. "The president does not think he needs to resign," he said at his televised briefing. "I repeat what I said last week, what I've said every day."

By reviving unwanted characterizations of the Republican Party as hostile to civil rights, the Lott controversy threatens a variety of items on Bush's agenda. One possible casualty is Bush's desire to replace race-based affirmative action programs with race-neutral selection processes. Opponents of Bush's "faith-based" plan to boost religious charities have already renewed complaints that Bush would weaken civil rights measures preventing hiring discrimination.

Republican sources said Bush also may feel more pressure to support tax cuts favoring lower-income Americans. And a number of Bush's judicial nominees have mixed records on civil rights that Democrats will seek anew to exploit.

Democrats point out that Charles W. Pickering, whose appellate court nomination was rejected by Senate Democrats in September, helped a cross-burning defendant and was hostile to civil rights claims. Democrats also point to an article Pickering wrote as a law student suggesting ways to strengthen Mississippi's law forbidding interracial dating.

A week after Lott's Dec. 5 remarks at a centennial celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), Bush rebuked the majority leader but authorized aides to say he should not resign. Lott would have to save himself without White House help, GOP officials explained at the time.

That is the only time Bush has personally spoken about the issue. "Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country," Bush said.

A challenge materialized on Sunday with a call by Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) for a leadership vote. Nickles telephoned Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, about his plan on Saturday and Rove did not try to stop him, sources said. Officials close to the White House said they believe Rove's plan is for Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to use the opening provided by Nickles to win election as majority leader.

The officials pointed out that Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon, has made a specialty of health care issues, and the creation of a prescription drug benefit for Medicare patients is planned as one of the pillars of Bush's State of the Union address next month.

White House officials tried to discourage the impression that they were orchestrating Lott's downfall. Fleischer said the call by Nickles to Rove "was described to me as a notification call and nothing more."

Despite persistent efforts to persuade minorities to drop their hostility to the Republican Party, Bush has winked at the more racially angry politics of the South. During the campaign, he spoke at South Carolina's Bob Jones University, which banned interracial dating. During a primary debate in South Carolina, he refused repeatedly to say whether the Confederate flag offended him.

"I believe the people of South Carolina can figure out what to do with this flag issue. It's the people of South Carolina's decision," Bush said to cheers from the local crowd.

A Bush supporter, Richard Hines, helped to doom Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) challenge to Bush in South Carolina by sending out 250,000 letters suggesting McCain was insufficiently supportive of the Confederate flag.

The flag issue returned indirectly in last month's midterm elections. Analysts said Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes of Georgia was voted out of office in part because of his efforts to remove the Confederate emblem from the state's flag. The Republican winner, for whom Bush campaigned, promised to hold a referendum on the state flag.

During Bush's presidential campaign, he issued a statement from Thurmond invoking his 1948 campaign. It came after Democrat Al Gore compared himself to Harry Truman. "Mr. Gore, I knew Harry Truman. I ran against Harry Truman. And Mr. Gore, you are no Harry Truman," read the Thurmond statement from Bush's campaign.

When asked about the segregationist campaign, with its opposition to civil rights, Fleischer, then the campaign spokesman, said that was not relevant. "We are in a day when people make light of their past," he said then.

That issue produced little of the controversy of Lott's direct endorsement of Thurmond's '48 campaign, and Lott was less successful in brushing off the matter as humor. "This was a lighthearted celebration of the 100th birthday of legendary Senator Strom Thurmond," Lott said in his early explanation.

Senior members of Bush's administration have also been involved in racially charged battles. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft led the fight to kill the federal judicial nomination of Ronnie White, a black state Supreme Court judge from Ashcroft's state of Missouri.

The president also has rankled the civil rights movement by avoiding traditionally liberal groups.

Asked earlier this year about his civil rights record and his decision not to meet with the NAACP, Bush replied that his secretary of state and national security adviser are black.

"Let's see," he said. "There I was, sitting around the leader with -- the table with foreign leaders, looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice."

In yesterday's briefing, Fleischer was asked about Bush's lack of appearances before civil rights groups. "I just dismiss the premise of the question," Fleischer said.