Posted on 12/22/2002 9:21:59 PM PST by kattracks
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Trent Lott, on the telephone from Pascagoula, Miss., reaching out to colleagues, asked one of the Senate's Republican wise men last Wednesday what he could do to save his majority leadership. Only one thing, he was told: Get George W. Bush to publicly endorse you. That was impossible, because the president had made a decision with far-ranging consequences.
Since Lott's Strom Thurmond statement, erosion of support among Republican senators was fed by their perception that the White House wanted a change. President Bush had ordered aides to say nothing for or against Lott. That impacted on one fellow Deep South senator who publicly declared loyalty to Lott but told me "the president cut out the legs from under Trent." This senator privately declared Lott dead on Thursday, 24 hours before he quit.
As principal author of Lott's demise, Bush must now face its consequences: limiting his freedom in policy touching on race. He has to decide whether to approve Solicitor General Theodore Olson's proposal for U.S. intervention against the University of Michigan in the racial quota case before the Supreme Court. He has to decide whether to renominate U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering, a friend and Mississippi Republican ally of Lott's, for the appellate bench. To go with Olson and Pickering would raise accusations of "racism."
The Lott affair quickly burned off the remaining Republican glow from mid-term election victories, but its impact transcends that. Democratic operatives dragged out the old chestnut of candidate Bush's 2000 visit to Bob Jones University, with spokesman Ari Fleischer harangued about it at Friday's White House briefing. The theme is that the GOP's Southern base, the bedrock of its national election victories, is an illegitimate legacy from racist Dixiecrats.
Once panicky conservatives had turned against Lott, the Left muffled its personal criticism of the senator. Bill Clinton, in New York last Wednesday while attending an event for the European Travel Commission, signaled what was afoot. "From top to bottom," he said, Republicans support what Lott supports. "They've tried to suppress black voting," said the former president, "they've run on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina . . . So, I don't see what they're jumping on Trent Lott about."
Prior to Lott's fall, the left-wing People For the American Way released a study showing that his voting record on racially charged issues was identical to possible successors -- including the supposedly more moderate Sen. Bill Frist. Indeed, the American Conservative Union rates the two as nearly identically conservative in lifetime voting records: Lott 93 percent, Frist 88 percent.
People For the American Way equates George W. Bush's record with Lott's, asserting: "It was correct for President Bush to criticize Lott's praise for Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign. But those words will ring hollow if the Administration and its Congressional allies continue to promote policies that undermine the nation's ability to make good on the American promise of equality and opportunity for all." Thus, in failing to defend Lott, the president opened himself to remorseless attack.
Frist as the probable new majority leader may not defend well against this assault. The Tennessee heart surgeon is much smoother than professional politician Lott, and unlikely to speculate publicly about a 54-year-old presidential campaign. However, conservative foes of cloning legislation were exasperated by Frist's equivocations as leader on this issue and fear the worst in how this relatively inexperienced senator will function as majority leader.
Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, on the telephone to colleagues late Friday in a tardy and futile campaign for majority leader, described himself as candidate of the Senate and Frist as candidate of the White House. Indeed, as the successful Senate Republican campaign chairman in 2002, Frist functioned like a member of the White House staff.
If the president and the new majority leader are jointly sensitized by attacks from the Left, the cost of Lott's 17 seconds of joshing a centenarian may run high indeed. Republicans cannot be the nation's majority party today without the solid South, and Democrats want to build on the Lott fiasco to undermine that base. Which way the White House goes on the University of Michigan court case and the Pickering nomination will provide two early clues of the Lott affair's impact.
©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
To: Miss Marple; gov_bean_ counter; TLBSHOW; Wait4Truth
Maynard Jackson was pushed aside for Terry McAuliffe. Carl McCall's money was diverted to McBride in Florida. The Minnesota Supreme Court justice, who is a formal football star and black (name escapes me) was passed over in favor of Fritz Mondale. Harold Ford was not only passed over for Nancy Pelosi, but Pelosi made a good try at humiliating him in public.
Excellent analysis of govbeancounters post, MissMarple.
Why oh why won't we hear one of the stuffed shirt GOP Senators on todays talk shows point any of this out?
35 posted on 12/22/2002 7:43 AM PST by MamaLucci
Alan Page.
"Why oh why won't we hear one of the stuffed shirt GOP Senators on todays talk shows point any of this out?"
They are afraid, I suspect. The 'stuffed shirts' are 'gutless wonders'. There is a reason why they kept voting for Lott. He didn't put them on the spot or force them to make tough decisions.
Left to defend themselves or the party, like Lott, they would default to "pander mode".
If the case is going to be made, it will have to be made by the President. Who, I believe, is fully capable of doing so.
Personally, I'm not concerned by how the Dems or the media promote and react to all this "racist" garbage. We know what they're going to do, regardless of what we might do.
I am much more concerned about the response of the middle class black families. Our message about conservative policies should be targeted to them. And, if what we do and say resonates with them, we will win the battle -- even if it isn't evident until the polls close in November, 2004.
You may be right. Let's wait and see what they do.
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