I don't agree jwalsh, they've gained absolutely zero, as a matter of fact they've lost ground.
They know that Lott was a weak leader at the start. They expected republicans to act just like them and circle the wagons around Lott like they did with Clinton. We didn't. Instead, we waited for him to fix his own mess and he made it worse.
Do you really believe he went out on vacation without someone telling him he had a mess on his hands? His first "apology" wasn't exactly an apology. He was probably "counciled" on the proper thing to say but he "forgot".
The whole first week everyone, including the president, waited for him to pick up the ball and run with it. Had he done so, everyone would have been there defending him. He didn't. He made it worse and had to be publically rebuked before it even dawned on him that he had a problem.
Anyway, to make a long story short, we didn't stand beside him as more and more of his past was revealed. The democrats wanted more than anything for that to happen so they could have tarred us, and our policies, as racists. They lost on that count and they lost a weak leader of the republican caucus.