Well as I said you have a good senario but I've seen the road to hell paved with good intentions before. My point is your senario is a good one but has the very one, "racist Trent Lott" agreed to it? I personally don't think he will.... We all can come up with good solutions, but there is only one that can make it work.... A lot of them take their marbles and move on to something else. He can spend the next two years rehabing his reputation for some other after Senate endeavor rather than being looked down upon by his fellow peers, press, media pundits, conservatives, snide remarks about Jesse and the boys will straighten him up if he don't toe the line.... JMO, of course
deport, he would be thown a lifeline with this one, if he quits the senate then he's permanently tarred with the racist brush and on top of that he will earn the rightous anger of half the people in America. His after Senate life would be a living hell and he's smart enough to know that.
The people in Mississippi will feel sorry for him, but they will be furious that they no longer have any pull in the senate and that would soon come home to them as the federal dollars dried up as a result of angry senators and furious big buck republican business owners.
As head of some important committee, and with the gratitude of his compatriots, he could shovel some real pork to the folks back home, and in a high profile position he could rebuild his image and use the "the dems almost destroyed me by character assassination" like a club to beat the dems with. If he's fool enough to pass that up then he's way too foolish to ever handle the position of majority leader.
He brought this on himself, first with his words, and then by the clumsy way he handled it. It's a golden opportunity for him to end up looking like a hero.