LoungeMachine
11-15-2006, 08:36 PM
Associated Press
Republicans Return Lott to Leadership
By LAURIE KELLMAN 11.15.06, 7:32 PM ET
Less than a half-hour after Republican senators voted to return Sen. Trent Lott to their leadership team, the Mississippi senator's phone rang. It was Vice President Dick Cheney, calling with congratulations on his election as the Senate's Republican whip, the No. 2 post, behind GOP minority leader-elect Mitch McConnell.
A few hours later, Cheney again delivered an atta-boy in person during a GOP policy lunch. So did White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton. And President Bush rang from Air Force One.
Lott's redemption had begun - just four years after the same White House helped engineer his ouster as the party's Senate leader.
It must have been sweet. Lott, 65, did little to hide his resentment during his exile from the party's top Senate ranks, shoved out for rhetorical offense: At Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday bash, Lott had saluted the South Carolina senator with comments later interpreted as support for southern segregationist policies.
Lott explained. He apologized. But some Senate colleagues undermined him, he wrote in a book last year. White House officials demanded his ouster. And perhaps worse, Bush hurt his feelings by disavowing the comments in a tone that was "devastating ... booming and nasty."
What a difference four years makes. Bush's popularity is drooping over the war in Iraq. Angry voters stripped Republicans of their majority in the Nov. 7 elections. And in a 100-member chamber in which Democrats hold the majority by one senator, Lott is the Republican in charge of lining up and counting votes for the next two years - when members of both parties will be seeking legislative accomplishments to tout on the 2008 campaign trail.
That makes him powerful enough to get the White House's attention once again.
En route to Singapore, Bush "told Senator Lott that he looked forward to working with him in the upcoming Congress," according to White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Another event during Lott's exile changed his relationship with the White House: Hurricane Katrina. The massive storm devastated Lott's home state, not to mention his historic oceanside home in Pascagoula. He found his refrigerator a few blocks away in a neighbor's yard. For him, the administration's bungled response was personal. He considered retiring this year, after three terms in the Senate and eight in the House.
But even as he was making that decision, Lott hinted to a reporter that he'd like to return to leadership.
"I might do it just to make everybody nervous," he said last year.
The comeback is an apt outlet for Lott's talents. He was the rare majority leader who seemed to relish the vote-wrangling duties that some of his predecessors loathed. Lott appropriated former majority leader Howard Baker's derisive description of the job for the title of his tell-all memoir last year: "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics."
Last week, Lott began an under-the-radar campaign for whip, notwithstanding Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander's 18-month bid for the same job.
He shifted into prime cat-herding mode Tuesday evening when senators returned to the chamber for their first vote since the election. Buzzing from one colleague to the next, sitting, standing, gesturing and pausing to count a list of supporters, Lott lined them up even as Alexander's office boasted of as many as 30 votes.
The next morning, the mild-mannered Tennessee senator estimated Lott had peeled off three senators who had committed to Alexander but changed their minds. Lott won the election 25-24.
Living proof that there can be second acts in politics, Lott was uncharacteristically mum when he strode out of the caucus with the rest of the newly elected GOP leadership team. He was sticking to the pledge he made during his quiet campaign to not overshadow his party's new leader, McConnell. Asked if he felt vindicated, Lott just pressed his lips together and shook his head.
Republicans Return Lott to Leadership
By LAURIE KELLMAN 11.15.06, 7:32 PM ET
Less than a half-hour after Republican senators voted to return Sen. Trent Lott to their leadership team, the Mississippi senator's phone rang. It was Vice President Dick Cheney, calling with congratulations on his election as the Senate's Republican whip, the No. 2 post, behind GOP minority leader-elect Mitch McConnell.
A few hours later, Cheney again delivered an atta-boy in person during a GOP policy lunch. So did White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton. And President Bush rang from Air Force One.
Lott's redemption had begun - just four years after the same White House helped engineer his ouster as the party's Senate leader.
It must have been sweet. Lott, 65, did little to hide his resentment during his exile from the party's top Senate ranks, shoved out for rhetorical offense: At Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday bash, Lott had saluted the South Carolina senator with comments later interpreted as support for southern segregationist policies.
Lott explained. He apologized. But some Senate colleagues undermined him, he wrote in a book last year. White House officials demanded his ouster. And perhaps worse, Bush hurt his feelings by disavowing the comments in a tone that was "devastating ... booming and nasty."
What a difference four years makes. Bush's popularity is drooping over the war in Iraq. Angry voters stripped Republicans of their majority in the Nov. 7 elections. And in a 100-member chamber in which Democrats hold the majority by one senator, Lott is the Republican in charge of lining up and counting votes for the next two years - when members of both parties will be seeking legislative accomplishments to tout on the 2008 campaign trail.
That makes him powerful enough to get the White House's attention once again.
En route to Singapore, Bush "told Senator Lott that he looked forward to working with him in the upcoming Congress," according to White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Another event during Lott's exile changed his relationship with the White House: Hurricane Katrina. The massive storm devastated Lott's home state, not to mention his historic oceanside home in Pascagoula. He found his refrigerator a few blocks away in a neighbor's yard. For him, the administration's bungled response was personal. He considered retiring this year, after three terms in the Senate and eight in the House.
But even as he was making that decision, Lott hinted to a reporter that he'd like to return to leadership.
"I might do it just to make everybody nervous," he said last year.
The comeback is an apt outlet for Lott's talents. He was the rare majority leader who seemed to relish the vote-wrangling duties that some of his predecessors loathed. Lott appropriated former majority leader Howard Baker's derisive description of the job for the title of his tell-all memoir last year: "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics."
Last week, Lott began an under-the-radar campaign for whip, notwithstanding Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander's 18-month bid for the same job.
He shifted into prime cat-herding mode Tuesday evening when senators returned to the chamber for their first vote since the election. Buzzing from one colleague to the next, sitting, standing, gesturing and pausing to count a list of supporters, Lott lined them up even as Alexander's office boasted of as many as 30 votes.
The next morning, the mild-mannered Tennessee senator estimated Lott had peeled off three senators who had committed to Alexander but changed their minds. Lott won the election 25-24.
Living proof that there can be second acts in politics, Lott was uncharacteristically mum when he strode out of the caucus with the rest of the newly elected GOP leadership team. He was sticking to the pledge he made during his quiet campaign to not overshadow his party's new leader, McConnell. Asked if he felt vindicated, Lott just pressed his lips together and shook his head.