Trent Lott’s career has been sort of like playing a golf hole. First he hit a long drive down the center of the fairway and became senate majority leader.

Then he made a racially insensitive comment, whether intentionally or inadvertently. He was disowned by Bush and landed in one of those deep bunkers like the ones Tiger Woods so adroitly voided a few years ago at St. Andrews.



http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...120/ai_96555070

The past few days, Lott has made a miraculous san wedge shot. He didn’t hole out, but he positioned himself with a short put.

Last Tuesday the voters of Mississippi rewarded him with another six year term to the U. S. Senate. It was a landslide. Lott got nearly 64% of the votes.




http://www.npr.org/news/specials/election2...results.html#ms

Today he made the short put for a birdie. He was elected Senate minority whip by a narrow margin – 25 to 24.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4337196.html

Questions for debate:

1. Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy? Why or Why not?


2. Is Lott’s selection to a leadership position, a slap at Bush and his administration?*

*The second question came up in conversation this morning in with my conservative friend at the coffee shop. I have to give credit where it is due.

I left the "r" our of friend and had "fiened" until I correctd it. Was this a freudian slip?

1. Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy? Why or Why not?

(Source)

That's enough for me to conclude that Lott's utterly disqualified. If the GOP wants to regain its status, it needs to put in place an anti-pork crusader. Tom Coburn would be a good start.

The best I can say for Trent Lott is that he is not Bill Frist. Lott didn't diagnose Terri Schiavo from a video.

I would welcome Tom Coburn as minority whip. I think he's a loose cannon, who would drive the Republican Party far to the right.

My crystal ball tells me that the country is moving to the center - a good place for Democrats to go. Let the Republicans sabotage themselves by promoting Coburn.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murd...avis/index.html

1. Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy? Why or Why not?
No. Surely the Republican party can find someone who is neither a crook nor a bigot for such a position. At the very least someone who isn't both.

2. Is Lott’s selection to a leadership position, a slap at Bush and his administration?
I have no idea. It seems to me if the party wants to move away from the disastrous administration, actually heading in a new direction would make sense rather than going backwards.
I think it would be best for all of us, no matter what our party affiliation, if our defacto two party system were competitive. I'd like to at least have the option of voting Republican just because it's not good to allow one party to take your vote for granted. Even if I don't vote for them, it would be nice to be able to respectfully disagree with Republicans rather than being horrified and disgusted by them.

I think the level of competition in government has gone away from the direction of a representative government to more of simply corruption.

I care about my issues, not the title or gang some politician belongs to, pointless babble in my opinion for the most part. It just happens that these gangs have tried to really corner the market on some of these issues. Say abortion, moderate ground is hard to find and those that attempt it in there parties typically don’t do as well as say someone being extreme in either direction with it.

As far as the idea of this topic goes, I could care less for Trent Lott. He personally has never done much anything I think is intelligent, and again has nothing to do with the fact he is a republican, he is with some form of power so obviously what they do is working, just look at the world and its history, tons of smart people doing what’s right and that’s why we occupy a utopia, then again slow and painful probably sums up evolution so that defuse the hate for me.

I think more or less Trent Lott’s position may have to do with the gang or pack mentality as much as it may have to do with his overt political career. I also think you could probably find this existing in any group or social body or flag.

Then again the only reason I support the natural law party is because they might bring the scientific method to the madness, I don’t think it could hurt really.

1. Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy? Why or Why not?

I have not had tremendous problems with Trent Lott as a public official. I think he, like many white southerners of his age has Jim Crow ghosts in his closet and that he got caught in a bad light for the Strom Thurmond 100th birthday party. He seemed to be a fairly effective majority leader and I think often times he would have survived that gaffe without losing his position. I don't think he was removed from leadership because of a liberal backlash.


2. Is Lott’s selection to a leadership position, a slap at Bush and his administration?*

I think he was removed from power because President Bush wanted him out and wanted someone more to his liking. Bush hung him out to dry and got immediate results, meaning I think Bush helped a palace coup in the Senate of which Frist was the beneficiary.

These are my suspicions. And I think the anti-Bush tilt of this election has led to a reassertion of power in Congress among Republicans to go in a direction away from their president. So yes, I think this is a type of slap in the face to the Bush administration and I think Lott supporters want to send a message that the COngressional Republicans are going to assert more of their check and balance power in the next to years.

Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy?

Does he deserve it? No. I wouldn't give any unreconstructed racist a position of power. I wouldn't give an unreconstructed racist the time of day. That said, a Confederacy supporter like Lott should send a clear message to voters about the type of party the GOP would like to be. I'd agree with BoF that the country is moving to the center (well, actually, I believe that the country has always been to the left of the GOP) and anything that helps the Republicans alienate moderates is fine with me. The sooner the GOP goes the way of the Whigs, the better. Trent Lott could help speed that along.

Is Lott’s selection to a leadership position, a slap at Bush and his administration?

Yes it is - whether intended or not (and I suspect that, to an extent, it was). I'm guessing that Lott rode back in on the tide of those embracing the meme that the GOP hasn't been "conservative enough" over the past five years or so. Obviously, the Republican Party is incapable of being fiscally conservative and it's unlikely they'll be shrinking the government any time soon, but at least they can throw a scrap to one conservative constituency - the white supremacists - and clearly have no shame about doing so. Yee-haw. I'm just not as convinced as they are that it's a winning strategy any more - even in the south.

Well, the electorate voted for change, so the Republicans gave us Trent Lott, oy. I agree with bits and pieces of what everyone else is saying. Just what do you have to do to "deserve" a high ranking in the Republican Party? Do you have to be fiscally irresponsible AND socially authoritarian, or just one? Do you have to be corrupt and have skeletons in your closet, or just one? What are the qualifications to be the whip of a party in need of an enema? For what it's worth, I don't dislike Trent Lott because of his Strom Thurmond comment, I thought that was blown out proportion, no, I dislike Trent Lott because he represents everything wrong with the Republican Party. He holds the Constitution in almost as much contempt as the ideal of fiscal conservatism. He's a white Southern social conservative Protestant with a history of strained race relations [He's a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens , considered a hate group by several NGOs, including the NAACP. Take a look at the bottom of this post for some of their words of wisdom] which is essentially every Republican Party stereotype rolled into one. If the RNC had any sense at all, they would have elected someone who breaks the traditional Republican mold...My pick would have been quasi-libertarian John Sununu of New Hampshire. Sununu would present a respectable, conservative and most importantly DIFFERENT face to the allegedly "big tent" Republican Party.

Wertz is, yet again, right in his view that Republicans think that they are simply not "conservative enough"...And they're right, or at least not in the way that most conservatives define conservatism; and that brings us to the heart of the matter. The Republican Party is introducing a new ideology into the political spectrum, at the expense of conservatism and this Republicanism ideology is personified in Trent Lott, so in that respect, I guess he's a great representative of the new Republicans. So I assume if you're a fan of the neo-Republican ideal of a "Moral Spendocracy" then I assume that Trent Lott looks like a decent choice, but I think that this leaves the rest of the country asking ourselves "So were they, like, not paying attention last Tuesday?" Sorry if that was jumbled and all over the place, my non-nondrowsy Triaminic started to kick in halfway through my first paragraph.

On edit, here are some tidbits from the mouth of the CCC: And now, my personal favorite.

CP

Careful what you wish for. They'd be sabotaging themselves far more seriously by promoting Lott. As for your crystal ball, just keep in mind the various initiatives that succeeded throughout the country: the Michigan Civil Rights initiative (even over the objections of leaders in the Michigan Republican Party), more DOMA amendments, and initiatives in Arizona cracking down further on illegal aliens (again, despite open-borders Republican "leaders" like McCain that come from there).

Coburn, whatever you may think of his ideology, is a straight shooter when it comes to ethics in government. I'm happy he has your support.

Tom Coburn..You mean this guy From this link. Emphasis mine. That's a real consensus builder.

I'm with BoF, all Lott's resurection and Coburn's promotion just proves that the Republican Party isn't paying attention to the conservative defection that is responsible for the degeneration of the party.

CP

CP, I think you're getting ahead of yourself here. Coburn isn't being promoted, as far as I know. He's made plenty of enemies in the Republican Party (most especially Trent Lott), not because of his views on abortion, homosexuality, or other social issues, but because he's made himself the #1 enemy of the corrupt practice of earmarking. I don't think he's going to be promoted anytime soon. I said he should be.

Anyway, I apologize for letting things slide off topic. I know this thread is about Lott, not Coburn, so I won't discuss Coburn further on this thread. Anyone who does can have the last word about him with me. The more relevant point is that I agree completely that Lott does not belong in that position.

Actually that was my fault Blackstone, I should've clarified. When I said "promotion" I didn't mean he was actually being promoted as in getting the job, I meant that he is being promoted as in, being given attention to, my bad.

CP

I'd agree - but I think that's largely because Coburn is a relative unknown. If Lott and Coburn are the options, the GOP is really scraping the bottom of the barrel - and it could be self-sabotage either way.


Absolutely. I think Lott is not only a slap at Bush and his administration, but also the Republican Party slapping itself - though shooting itself in the foot might be the more apt metaphor. I would love to see a serious schism in the GOP, resulting in a third, genuinely conservative party. Were that to happen, I suspect that the party of Trent Lott would soon go the way of the Whigs.

Republicans apparently didn't get the message that the country wants change. After retreading Trent Lott earlier this week, they advanced two current leaders in the U. S. House of Representatives today - John Boehner and Roy Blunt. Same old, same old - no Lysol found on the Republican side of the aisle.

http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view...rticleid=167793

Questions for debate:

1. Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy? Why or Why not?
No, would have been nice to see them give a new face a leadership role to see what direction they could lead their party to, hopefully it would have lead it back to the core principals for which the Republicans have seemed to veer so far from.


2. Is Lott’s selection to a leadership position, a slap at Bush and his administration?*
Not really because I see it as the same people running things so while Bush wanted him out before to try to bring the public into excepting this new Republican philosophy, having Lott as a leader won't help or hurt them anymore cause the public is wise by now to the new Republican philosophy and aint buying it anymore thank god.


Rofl you noticed that also Bof both house's it seems that the Republican's didn't learn anything when selecting their leaders, hopefully that gives us a sign on how they will govern also because that will pay the Democrats even more in 08' and beyond.

*edited to correct a mispelling

To be fair, BoF, the Democrats maintained the same leadership as well. Everyone is exactly where they were after the election as they were before the election. Democrats won, yes, but John Murtha speaking out was the harbinger of the downfall of public opinion about Iraq. I had no idea who Rep. Murtha was before he spoke out. The pundits made a big deal about Rep. Murtha because now the Democratic message of opposition had a respectable messenger. Rep. Murtha was not anti-war for political reasons the way Sen. Kerry was portrayed, nor was he a "nut job" liberal like Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi, he wasn't an armchair quarterback like Gov. Dean, he was an experienced veteran with over 20 years of honorable service. The Republican attack machine had no response for Murtha, good thing he didn't have a book coming out though. Around the same time, can't remember if it was before or after but the retired generals (specifically, Gen. Zinni) started coming forward. Rep. Murtha was trounced in his bid for minority leader. The guy who was partly responsible for the victory gets none of the spoils.

To address the question about Sen. Lott. I do not see this as a significant position to the public. The whip does not represent the party. He gets support within his own party, not really something he probably wasn't already doing before the election to a lesser degree. I would rather see a straight talker lead the Republicans than a guy like Bill Frist. An exchange with Bill Frist would go something like this:
Interviewer: Senator, what is your name?
Bill Frist: I'm a Senator in the United States Congress. Before that, I was a doctor. My mother and father raised me and gave me my name. I love my parents very much. God Bless America.
Interviewer: ?

So Sen. Lott says things that are.. well, despicable. So what? he has freedom of speech and he was elected to Congress by the citizens of Mississippi. Don't judge Senator Lott for being a racist, blame the people of Mississippi for voting him back in after his remarks. If those remarks were so unpopular with his constituents he would not have been re-elected by such a strong majority. Apparently, the "White Supremacist" caucus is strong in Mississippi. Even if Sen. Lott believed that we should revert back to slavery and he is in a position of power he needs to wield that power to be anything other than a loudmouth Limbaugh-type. Point to some racist "federal" legislation that he has written or supported.

What Pres. Bush said about these election results are dead-on. The results were close, the cumulative results were not. The vote counts were 51%-49% pretty much across the board. The only reason the Republicans lost this election is because the economy stunk. The wages were stagnate, the energy prices were at the highest ever, more jobs are leaving to other countries, health care costs are increasing, college tuition is up, Pell grants were reduced, Medicaid was cut, and so on. Not to say that exclusively those were the reasons, but the reason politics weren't local is because the people are struggling and wanted a change. In an ordinary election season Lincoln Chaffee wins, probably without opposition, Michael Steele, an extremely popular Lt. Governor wins his election, George Allen would not have been contested, especially by a former Republican, Jim Webb, who is a Democrat of Opportunity, Jim Talent of Missouri and Mike DeWine of Ohio would have won just because they were non-controversial incumbents and Montana, going to a Democratic Senator, only during extraordinary times, like right now. The Republicans will return to power eventually and they will do so because of the economy, nothing else.

That is absolutely true barnaby2341, but it was the Republicans who were voted out of office after having been in controlled the House for fourteen years and the better part of that time in the Senate. The Democrats were not repudiaed, uh thumped, in the last election. Why bump off a winning team?

The general consensus is that the Democrats did not win this election, the Republicans lost it. George Allen is a perfect example of this. Why didn't the Democrats promote Jack Murtha? For the same reason the Republicans chose Trent Lott for minority whip, because the power positions in Washington have been solidified long before this election and will stay the same long after. What exactly did Steny Hoyer do on the national scene to help the Democrats? Who is Steny Hoyer is probably a better question?

Stepping away and looking at the big picture, George Carlin's words come to mind: we don't have a choice, we have the illusion of choice. That is a true statement, the parties switched power but the people with power are still the same. Why would we expect Sen. Lott to take orders from the same people he was giving them to just a few years earlier?

I heard something funny on Real Time w/ Bill Maher last night. In Bill's monologue he said, "Trent Lott was excited about being named the minority whip, until he found out he wouldn't be whipping minorities. Oh, I kid the racists." Bill is hilarious.

Exactly what do you mean by general consensus? How do you measure general consensus? I hear this spin coming from the Republican side of the aisle. They haven't been right about much else for six years, why this. I suppose it's supposed to blunt (no pun intended) the the impact of the the election.

Win or lose, this is all semantics.

Does Trent Lott deserve to be a leader in the Republican party? I think so. The Republican party is now the party of the south. Trent Lott fits that region of the country better than when the party was more influencial in the heartland and west.

Was it a slap at Bush? Doubtful. I don't believe the Republican Congress gave much thought to Bush's feelings or opinions when they elected their leadership. In my opinion, and many others, his war in Iraq was the greatest burden the party faced in this election. Corruption was also a burden and they brought that on themselves, of course, but the Iraqi war was on the minds of many voters. Lincoln Chaffee who lost a seat that had been in his family for generations said people said to him, "Linc, I like you. But I've got to send a message to Bush." I don't think Bush has many friends left in Congress. He's really a lame duck and probably has more in common with the Democrat majority than the Republican minority on many issues.

Yes he does. He outlined why he deserves the post. He listed as his biggest asset, his experience in holding the minority whip position during the Reagan administration. He has done the job before and has the experience. He was elected by the people, and then chosen by his fellow senators. Yes, he did make a mistake in uttering what he did. At the same time, it certainly was a minor error compared to Alcee Hastings, who was impeached, and removed as a judge for taking bribes. For how long do you continue to punish a person? Is this about carrying out the duty of the whip or continuing to flog a person for their insensitive remark a few years back?

1. Does Trent Lott deserve being elected the number two man in the GOP hierarchy? Why or Why not?

Sure, why not? He knows the job already, and despite the insensitivity he demonstrated at Strom Thurmond's hundredth birthday celebration, he is a pretty capable leader. He would not be my choice, but then I'm not a Republican.

2. Is Lott’s selection to a leadership position, a slap at Bush and his administration?

There was probably some thinking of that nature behind this selection. After all, Bush is considered largely responsible for the Republican mid-term election losses. Had he dumped Rumsfeld sooner, the outcome might have been different. Of the two men, I prefer Trent Lott to George W. Bush. If it constitutes a slap at Bush and his administration, so much the better.

Look--It seems everyone in politics commits gaffes from time to time--look at Senator Allen and "macaca" and Senator Kerry and his blunder when trying to tell a joke about Bush being stupid. I agree with nebraska29 that Lott has already paid for talking up a former segregationist at his birthday party. Much more relevant is what he says and does these days in the Senate.

Here is a Washington Post survey taken back in March of 2006, look for question 15.
70% of public thinks Democrats have no plan for Iraq

I'm not Republican BoF but if the situation with our nation is as bad as it is, and there are still Senators and Representatives getting 49% of the electorate to vote for them, coupled with the information in that survey, you come to the conclusion that people were not clamoring for the Democrats, but rejecting the Republicans. All major media outlets report this perspective, not just FOX News. Most people I talk to say they were angry with the Republicans because they got away from their party's principles. There are other surveys out there that I cannot find at this time, that put Congressional approval at somewhere in the teens.

Calling my opinion "spin" is dismissive. Maybe you think I am trying to take away from the Democrats victory. I don't know. But the Republicans were the party in power, so to suggest that the Democrats won this election when they have been suppressed for the last 6 years is a conclusion I cannot come to. If you could point to something that the Democrats actually DID you may have an argument, but since the Democrats did not DO anything we are left to believe that this election was a rebuke of the Republicans.

The public opinion about the Democrats having no plan cited in the Washington Post survey is relatively true today. There are plans proposed by Democrats, but no plan endorsed by all Democrats. There is the Murtha plan of moving troops to the periphery. There is the Biden plan of breaking up the country ethnically and religiously. The specifics of those plans have not been articulated. I can come up with those plans by myself and I don't even have access to secret intelligence. The Bush plan is equally elusive, if there even is one.

What makes this analysis even more accurate is the fact that Frist left and Lott returned, while both parties kept their leadership intact. So basically nothing has changed. There has not been some Democratic superstar to emerge and shift the public's opinion to favor the Democrats the way Schwarzenegger's candidacy was a boost for Republicans. Maybe if Lance Armstrong would have come out and ran for Governor of Texas I might be inclined to believe that he led a Democratic revival, but something like that didn't happen. It was the Democratic status quo, the same status quo that wasn't good enough in '00, '02, or '04, but all of a sudden was good in '06. The Republicans screwed it up and since the public has only one alternative, the Democrats swept in.

For what it's worth, Trent Lott's statement wasn't a "mistake" or a "gaffe" or a "blunder". There is no question of what the Dixiecrat platform was and no evading the fact that Lott was endorsing that platform in strong words: with segregation, "we wouldn't have had all these problems". Racism isn't something that just goes away. It's not like Trent Lott was a racist for sixty-one years - and proud of it - then got better overnight because he made his feelings known in a public forum.

And, sure, as barnaby pointed out, it's Lott's right to be an unabashed racist - and the right of the people of Mississippi to elect such a man to high office, should they be so morally bankrupt. But the bigger problem, as I see it, is Lott's elevation by the Republican Party itself. The GOP is de facto embracing Lott's racism - just as the people of Mississippi have. For a national political party, that is unconscionable - and I hope it marks the beginning of the end of them. But it is also unconscionable for the public to dismiss Lott's racism as an error or a thing of the past. Suggesting that the United States would have been better off under the Dixiecrat platform is not someone "misspeaking" - and it should not be forgotten.


I'm no great fan of the Democratic Party - nor do I necessarily feel that any party needs a strong central "superstar" to define its positions - but I have to admit that I find your suggestion that the Democrats have maintained their "status quo" since 2000 a bit baffling. If Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt are still the Congressional leaders and Terry McAuliffe is still Chairman of the DNC, then I've been living in a parallel universe for the past several years. Despite the fact that I've seen a number of shifts in their positions over the past few elections, the Democrats didn't need to change their policies much to provide a better alternative to those of the Republicans. With a significant number of moderates having given their support to the GOP over the past few years and finding that they've been slapped for it, it shouldn't have taken much for them to start considering their options. Maybe they just realized that the Dems had better policies (or less corruption) all along. Frankly, I think it's difficult to tell whether people were voting for Democrats or against Republicans - and we may never know. Either way, a major change in the Democratic platform doesn't appear to have been necessary to give them an electoral victory.

Calling this a Republican loss rather than a Democratic victory is also dismissive. I think you've swallowed the right spin and are regurgitating it on this thread.

Try to sell that to the grass roots Democrats who contributed money, made phone calls, licked envelopes and stamps, delivered yard signs and got people to the polls.

At least give the Democrats time to get in office. The Republicans are still there until January. Regardless of what the Democrats propose on Iraq, Bush is still commander-in-chief until January 20, 2009. Our [Democrats] victory doesn't make us miracle workers.