ASHINGTON, Nov. 15 — A few minutes past 7 on the morning after Election Day, Senator Trent Lott called President Bush, who pointedly asked him if he was still at home. Posted on 11/15/2002 11:59:08 PM PST by JohnHuang2
ASHINGTON, Nov. 15 — A few minutes past 7 on the morning after Election Day, Senator Trent Lott called President Bush, who pointedly asked him if he was still at home.
Mr. Lott knew he was being baited. The president, an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, loves to razz Mr. Lott, a confirmed night owl, about how hard it is to make it to crack-of-dawn meetings at the White House.
Mr. Lott shot back: "No, Mr. President, I'm in my office. Let's go to work."
The exchange, while jocular, hinted at what some Republicans said was below-the-surface tension between the White House and Mr. Lott, the Mississippi Republican who will again become majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January.
Their complex relationship has been shaped by personal history, friction over some appointments, and the normal clashes between the executive and legislative branches. Now it will be tested in new ways as Senate Republicans face a critical decision: how much to defer to a president whose popularity enabled them to recapture the majority, and how much to pursue their own agenda on their own terms.
Mr. Lott says his relationship with the president has always been good, going back to their work together on the first President Bush's unsuccessful re-election campaign in 1992.
"We had a friendship and a generational affinity," said Mr. Lott, 61. "I went down to Texas in 1999 and met with him, and we got to know Laura, too. My wife and I made an early decision to support him."
But now, with the administration sending signals that Mr. Bush intends to flex his new muscle more aggressively on Capitol Hill, Mr. Lott's job becomes even trickier than it already was.
Right after the election, Mr. Lott suggested that it did not matter much if Republicans had to wait until January to pass domestic security legislation that was to their liking. The next day Mr. Bush made clear that he wanted the bill dealt with immediately in the current lame-duck session of Congress, and Mr. Lott quickly changed his tune.
Mr. Lott fired up social conservatives right after the election by promising to bring up and pass legislation banning the procedure that its opponents call partial-birth abortion. At almost precisely the same time, the White House was counseling religious and anti-abortion groups to be patient and not to push for quick action, in part because Mr. Bush did not want to start the new Congress on an issue that would be inflammatory to many Democrats.
Despite Mr. Lott's early support for Mr. Bush in 1999, the two have a complicated history that some Republicans say has left each man a bit wary of the other.
Mr. Lott supported Jack Kemp for the Republican presidential nomination against Mr. Bush's father in 1988 and opposed the Bush tax increases in 1990. Since the current president took office, he has overridden Mr. Lott's wishes on a number of personnel and patronage decisions.
Over Mr. Lott's protests, the president replaced a close associate of Mr. Lott, Curtis Hébert Jr., as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to make way for a Texan, Pat Wood III, favored by Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Lott's quiet efforts to secure a government post for his brother-in-law, Richard F. Scruggs, a prominent trial lawyer, have failed to win support from the White House, where trial lawyers are viewed as enemies of big business and as financial supporters of Democrats.
Mr. Lott's political skills were also questioned by some White House advisers last year after Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the party, costing Republicans their majority in the Senate. The White House felt blindsided by the defection, and some officials faulted Mr. Lott for not heading it off or at least seeing it coming. Mr. Lott's defenders said the White House had contributed to the defection by snubbing Mr. Jeffords. Some administration officials have privately raised questions about the energy and focus of Mr. Lott's leadership.
White House officials say Mr. Bush's relationship with Mr. Lott is strong, close and cordial, as are the senator's ties to the administration in general. On Thursday morning alone, said Nicholas E. Calio, the president's Congressional liaison, Mr. Lott spoke to Mr. Bush once, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, once, and Mr. Calio twice.
"He and the president have a very good relationship," said Nicholas E. Calio, the president's Congressional liaison. "The president likes him. He trusts him. He calls him a lot."
Kenneth M. Duberstein, a lobbyist and consultant who was chief of staff in the Reagan White House and has close ties to the current administration, said Mr. Lott would be "javelin thrower and javelin catcher" for Mr. Bush in the Senate.
"The White House is betting an awful lot on Trent Lott right now," Mr. Duberstein said. "He and the White House have to produce together so the Republicans and the president will be known for effectively governing on all the domestic and foreign issues that are likely to come up."
Allies of both men said their political dance was tricky and sometimes awkward, and one that some Republicans said Mr. Lott had not yet fully mastered. But in a way, they said, Mr. Lott's pirouettes will be less important than Mr. Bush's emerging assertiveness in dealing with Congress — a product of his comfort in his office and his recent demonstration of electoral muscle.
One senior Republican aide on Capitol Hill said Mr. Lott was learning that even as majority leader, his power would be diminished relative to that of Mr. Bush.
"Lott sees the writing on the wall that Bush is the master of the universe in Washington," the aide said. "Ultimately he's as much of a pragmatist as Bush is. The days of Lott as the conservative revolutionary are long gone anyway — what he understands now is who holds the power."
Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist and the president of the Free Congress Foundation, said Mr. Bush had been annoyed at times that Senate Republicans under Mr. Lott had not fought as hard for the administration's agenda over the last two years as had House Republicans.
"Generally, the president thinks that senators are much too much oriented toward keeping their own prerogatives rather than acting on behalf of the common good," Mr. Weyrich said. "And my understanding is that Bush doesn't like Lott all that much personally."
But Mr. Weyrich said Mr. Lott and the president would be able to work together as long as there was a clear understanding that Mr. Bush was in charge.
Mr. Calio said the White House recognized that senators and presidents had different constituencies.
"In most relations in life there can be tensions at times," Mr. Calio said. "In relations between the executive and legislative branches, the founders built it into the system. Trent fights really hard for Mississippi, as he should. In the process, he may have been unhappy with the results at times, but it would be very easy to overplay that. It doesn't undermine the relationship at all."
OK, what us Bush's problem here?
Over 75% of the population of this country is for the ban and he's worried about upsetting Democrats? WHAT!?!?
Walk in small steps and the animal you're hunting won't notice you.
Politics is the same !
No, I don't get it. Banning PBA is a winning issue. There is no reason for Bush to care one iota what the other 25% of this country thinks about PBA when 75% are against it.
I believe President Bush will go after the partial-birth abortion situation next summer and is probably looking for the just the right time to present legislation. This is only my gut feeling, you understand. Because homosexual rights galvanizes Liberals like the unborn's rights galvanizes Conservatives.
We don't want to do anything that gives the Democrats an immediate cause to get agitated and then rally around.
Right now, Ashcroft is attacking the assisted suiciders out in Oregon. I wish him luck. Frankly, I suspect this one might go nowhere. The U.S.Supremes have already looked at the issue and told the Feds to leave Oregon alone as it's a state's issue.
Exactly so!
They are trying to get the point of the wedge in somewhere - ANYWHERE!!!
There is no real difference between the GOP and the dems and now that the GOP has a lock on power (like the dems in 92), you will see the GOP for what it really is- nothing different from the dems. And that scares a lot of people because it invites a call for third party candidates- if we ever have elections again...
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