Trent Lott to resign from Senate

November 26, 2007

There have been rumors about Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott’s (R-Miss.) future plans, but this news will almost certainly catch the political world off-guard.

NBC News has learned that Trent Lott’s in the midst of informing close allies that he plans to resign his senate seat before the end of the year. It’s possible a formal announcement of his plans could take place as early as today.

Lott was just re-elected to another term a year ago, so he wouldn’t have to face any kind of challenge until 2012. Even then, most would agree that Lott’s is one of the safest seats in the chamber.

Indeed, it’s a bizarre time for Lott to end his career. After a humiliating fall from grace in 2002, Lott had mounted a slow-but-steady comeback. He’d finally rejoined the Senate Republican leadership, elected as the Minority Whip earlier this year. For that matter, as of a few months ago, he’d raised about $1.5 million for his leadership political action committee, which senators on the verge of resignation rarely do.

There really haven’t been any hints of this announcement at all. Far from preparing an exit, Lott has been acting like someone more engaged in the political process than ever, even hosting a meeting last month with “a handful of the Senate’s most notable compromisers to figure out how to unclog the gridlock that has slowed the chamber’s progress this year.”

And yet, a month later, Lott is not only prepared to retire, but poised to give up his seat five years ahead of schedule?

We’ll probably hear something about “spending more time with his family,” but there’s something odd about this story.

As for what happens next, Josh Kraushaar has some helpful details about possible successors.

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) would be tasked with appointing a replacement for Lott to serve before the special election is held. […]

Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.), who announced his retirement from the House earlier this year, would be a leading candidate for the Senate seat in the special election. Another possible GOP contender for the seat would be Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

On the Democratic side, former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore has been mentioned as a strong statewide candidate in an otherwise heavily Republican state.

Moore would definitely be a credible Senate candidate, giving Dems a possible pick-up opportunity — exactly what Republicans don’t want to hear right now. In fact, Lott’s departure would make him the sixth Republican senator to step down this cycle, making a difficult landscape all the more challenging (and reviving Democratic hopes of possibly reaching a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority).

As for today, the AP reports that Lott has scheduled two news conferences in Mississippi today. According to congressional sources, Lott’s resignation is not due to health problems, but simply that the senator has “other opportunities” he plans to pursue.

Stay tuned.

Dead girl or live boy?

  • Health was the first thing I thought of, but if it’s not that, then I guess he needs to make more money so that his old age is a comfortable one.

    My sense is that it just hasn’t been the same for him since he had to resign as Majority Leader; he’s been out of the spotlight, swept to the side, increasingly irrelevant. So, maybe he’s just over it all. Maybe winning re-election in 2006 just didn’t give him that same spark, especially with the GOP losing the majority.

    He’ll land on his feet – probably already has something nifty lined up, or he wouldn’t be making the announcement.

    It is starting to look like the old rats-leaving-the-sinking-ship, though, isn’t it?

  • phoebes said:
    Dead girl or live boy?,/i>

    Goat;>

    Did he ever get his house rebuilt after Katrina? Maybe he just wants to sit on the poarch rocking away as teh suckers in NO wait for the ice trucks.

  • This isn’t just “one more rat leaving the sinking ship;” Lott already had accomodations on a luxury lifeboat (five years left to his term, a solid red seat on a heavily-red state, and nothing really on the radar as far as scandalous issues). Could he be eyeing the presidential field? He’d certainly be more credible than the gaggle of twits vying for the nomination right now—and he’s probably the only GOPer who could come in at this late a date, and still mount a credible campaign.

    Think of it this way: A “son fo the South” gets him the Southern vote for sure, stripping it away in huge, bloodiny chunks from everyone else who’s in the running. Losing his home to Katrina in ’05 ties him to other states that have experienced disaster—and Katrina hasn’t been “played to death” like 9/11 has been. He’s got a better record as a fiscal conservative, and he’s championed a few good issues that might bring in the undecided/BlueDog votes.

    He’s got more energy than UnAware Fred (although the dead tree across the road also has more energy that UnAware Fred), he’s obviously not a Quixotic fringe-freak like wRonG Paul, and he doesn’t have anywhere near the “”for-it-before-against-it” roadkill tied around his neck like Ghouliani and Mittens. And—he’s got the national name recognition that Huckleberry doesn’t have.

    I’ll be waiting to see what he has to say….

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  • I think he’s getting out to avoid the more restrictive rules on lobbying Congress that take effect January 1.

    Since he no longer has any power, might as well go after the money, right?

  • When it was being rumored that Thad Cochran would retire, Mike Moore was being suggested as a popular democratic candidate that could win the seat… looks like he might get his chance anyway!

  • Off guard? Hell, I’m rejoicing that this racist pig is finally leaving and I don’t give a damn how it happens.

    Let Mt. Zion REJOICE!! The shame was that he was ever elected let alone, be allowed to stick around this long.

    I think the wrinkled old bastard is too old for a dead girl or a live. I hope it’s some debilitating disease that makes his pecker fall off.

  • I have no idea why he’s doing this, although Anne’s suggestions sounds very credible. I think Lott suffered some heavy personal losses in Katrina, but he knew about that before he ran for re-election. The prospect of being a member of the permanent minority party probably has a lot to do with it.

    Lott is one guy whose mug on the tube I definitely will not miss, but I can’t seem to find the right adjectives to describe how I think of him: smarmy, unctuous, vain (bad hairpiece), not-so-crypto racist, Any others?

  • There’s an AP report about Lott’s retirement, too. I wonder if these paragraphs contain clues about why he retired:

    No reason for Lott’s resignation was given, but according to a congressional official, there is nothing amiss with Lott’s health. The senator has “other opportunities” he plans to pursue, the official said, without elaborating. Lott was re-elected to a fourth Senate term in 2006.

    Lott’s colleagues elected him as the Senate’s Republican whip last year, a redemption for the Mississippian after his ouster five years ago as the party’s Senate leader over remarks he made at retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party in 2002. Lott had saluted the South Carolina senator with comments later interpreted as support for southern segregationist policies.

    After the 2006 elections, when Democrats recaptured the Senate, Lott was put in charge of lining up and counting Republican votes as whip, the No. 2 job behind minority leader Mitch McConnell.

    His 2006 comeback was an apt outlet for the Mississippian’s talents. He was the rare majority leader who seemed to relish the vote-wrangling duties that some of his predecessors loathed.

    and this about the Strom Thurmond gaffe:

    President Bush distanced himself from Lott’s remarks, telling an audience the comments “do not reflect the spirit of our country.”

    Lott then made a round of public appearances, apologizing for his gaffe. He called his remarks “insensitive” and said he regretted “reopening old wounds and hurting so many Americans.” He also apologized on Black Entertainment Television and promised to use his position to help push through initiatives that would benefit minorities.

    Lott later wrote in a book — “Herding Cats: A Life in Politics” — that President Bush hurt his feelings by disavowing the comments in a tone that was “devastating … booming and nasty.”

    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 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.

    It appears to me that he’s grown disillusioned with Bush, so his enthusiasm for “herding cats” has died. How can you drum up a motivation to rally your fellow Republicans who want to distance themselves from Bush when you’ve had it with him, too?

    Maybe he’s REALLY fed up.

  • My guess is that Trent doesn’t like the way his party is going and finally made good on a threat to resign to either to force an issue or gain additional political control.

    How completely rotted-out is this Republican party when a party stalwart sitting in as tall cotton as Trent Lott says “Screw it” in the first year of his re-elected Senate term? How far the “Permanent Republican Majority” has fallen. The floodgates are officially open.

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  • I wonder if there is a smidgen about incumbancy involved. If he was thinking of leaving after this term, his seat would have been up for grabs. The Gov. would appoint an appropriate tool who would then run in the special election, thereby having an advantage of being the sitting Senator – even if appointed. While this is Mississippi and a Republican not matter the stripe would have not problem getting elected, incumbancy does count for a lot. Still seems bit hinkey.

  • The biggest rat to flee the sinking ship since Karl Rove.

    I guess being the leader of a party that’s about to get its ass kicked by some wimpy morons* isn’t Trent’s cuppa tea. Better to lobby for Exxon.

    * (Reid and Pelosi)

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  • With Lott gone, what’s Diane Feinstein gonna do for sage advice re: allowing bad judge nominations out of the committee for the up-and-down vote?

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