TRENDING LOTT
“It hasn’t been the best week,” says a Republican leadership aide.
“But Senator Frist isn’t the one conservatives ought to be
attacking.”
If not Bill Frist, then who?
Well, for starters, Sen. Trent Lott, who, true
to his reputation as true Senate Operator, was pulling the strings
on the Gang of 14 nuclear disarmament team.
Knight Ridder last Friday reported on a secret meeting between Lott and Sen.
John McCain in the hours leading up to last week’s
compromise. Lott apparently made a production of entering McCain’s
office space through a side door, but then, later spoke to several
reporters about his meeting.
According to several Lott staffers involved with his management
of the Rules Committee, Lott actually handed off his negotiations
— as well as the various proposals he had been working on with
Sen. Ben Nelson — after it was reported that Lott
was trying to cut the legs out from under his Republican
colleagues.
In fact, Lott was in almost constant contact with McCain and
several other allies, including Sen. Lindsey
Graham, who joined the coalition later in the
negotiations. Throughout, however, Lott refused to sit in on
further meetings with Democrats, leaving that to McCain.
“McCain was already on board, and Lott knew that he more than
anyone would be willing to work the media in a way that Lott could
not,” says a Rules Committee aide. “But we were all working on
this. When you have an opportunity to move into leadership, you
don’t pass it up.”
Leadership, you say?
As previously reported
by the Prowler, Lott has his eye on the majority leadership once
again, after mismanaging the politics and the policies of the GOP
Senate for several years.
“Lott knows how to work a caucus for a vote, but he just has
lousy political instincts,” says a Senate colleague. “The Strom
Thurmond mess was just the capper.”
Along the way, Lott was singularly responsible for the 50-50
split Republicans had to deal with after the 2000 election, when he
allowed Sen. Connie Mack of Florida to retire from
his safe seat with no clear favorite to replace him in 2000.
Lott has been looking for ways to undercut both President Bush
and Sen. Frist, as he blames both — though Bush more — for his
political purgatory out of leadership.
But Lott intends to challenge Sen. Mitch
McConnell for Senate leader after Frist’s retirement in
January 2007. “This coalition is more than just about judges,” says
the Rules Committee staffer. “It’s a Republican group that the
Senator believes will give him his leadership slot back. These
independents won’t support McConnell. At least that’s what we think
now.”
Lott, apparently, isn’t stopping at the judge deal. According to
a Senate Democratic leadership aide, the man from Mississippi has
been speaking with Sen. Joe Biden about brokering
a Bolton vote, again pulling an end run around Frist and his
leadership team.
“He isn’t trying to help the President,” says the leadership
aide. “He’s working the caucus in a way that would damage Bolton’s
chances for confirmation. Every conservative should be worried
about this.”
Frist’s lousy week has little to do with his leadership
abilities, which should not be in doubt given his track record of
forcing the issues with Democrats. It has more to do, Senate
insiders say, with the unstable and often precarious situation that
takes hold in the cloakrooms before Senators reach the floor for
votes. It is there where the real arm-twisting takes place, not
among staffers and their bosses, but the bosses themselves.
“I don’t think a lot of these guys know which they will vote
before they hit the floor on some issues,” says a Senate staffer.
“I don’t know what my boss is going to do half the time. It might
depend on which Republican he talks to before he walks out on the
floor. Sometimes it’s that fluid. Frist and his people can only do
so much before it is out of his hands. The judges votes is a great
example of that.”
