SENATE SEAT OPENING UP IN MISSISSIPPI ?

Back on September 29, after being tipped off by my friend Willard, I posted a short piece called COULD MISSISSIPPI GO A LITTLE BLUE? Basically it's about how Mississippi could be the big sleeper race in 2006, a contest no one was expecting. Well, rumblings of expectation have begun.

Trent Lott, who has been speaking openly about retirement, only raised the kind of automatic chump change (around $27,000) in the just-ended fiscal quarter that comes in to a campaign that isn't campaigning. ROLL CALL already reported that Lott has been musing about retiring for personal financial reasons. Lobbying pays a whole lot better than senatoring (unless you play by Frist-rules; but then you can get caught and go to jail) and Lott claims all his money was tied up in the house that was destroyed by Katrina. (That sounds like a stretch and I don't believe that he wasn't covered by the kind of insurance company that isn't going to take good care of the senior senator from Mississippi. I mean Trent Lott's not gonna get treated like a... constituent of his.)

His musings: “I am going to wind up taking a pretty good financial hit from this, anyway you cut it. That was frankly, most of my life savings. It was the first thing I ever had in my life that was paid off. On a personal basis, it is probably time for me to go... On a constituent and professional basis, maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know.”

He could be trying to blackmail desperate GOP leaders, hysterical about the prospect of losing their (Bush-impeachmnet-proof) Senate majority (and their cushy/prestigious leadership status). Coburn may not care about losing the Senate leadership for a cycle but BushCo is frantic. What does Lott want to stay put?: back into the leadership. When Frist retires from the Senate (either to run for president or go to prison for insider trading, etc-- or both), Mitch McConnell will take over Lott's old job as party leader. But there are 5 other leadership posts that could interest Lott. And with Santorum unlikely to be returning to Washington after the elections, Lott seems to be offering to stay in the Senate, keeping Mississippi off the electoral table, in return for a position. It probably won't work. This seat could be very much in play.