Trent Lott and Daschle's 'old friend'

Trent Lott was all ready for me.

"So, I hear you're an old friend of Tom Daschle," Lott said as I shook his hand that fall afternoon back in 2002.

No, I quickly replied. I am a South Dakotan and first met Daschle in 1979 and had covered him on and off for years, but we weren't friends, young or old.

Still, I always enjoy talking about South Dakota politics, often more than the person listening wants to endure, so I ran through my memories of Daschle while we chatted in a Montana hotel conference room. Lott listened politely and offered an occasional comment.

Lott, who announced Monday his intention to resign from the Senate at the end of 2007, repeatedly swapped roles with Daschle as the leader of the Senate from 2001-2002. Lott became majority leader on June 12, 1996, when Bob Dole resigned from the Senate to focus on his doomed race for the presidency.

Lott held the post until Jan. 3, 2001, when the 108th Congress was sworn in and there was a 50-50 deadlock in the Senate. Vice President Al Gore, in his role as presiding officer of the Senate, cast the deciding vote and Daschle was majority leader — for a few days.

On Jan. 20, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney took office and Cheney then had the determining ballot in the Senate. Lott was back in charge.

But Daschle quietly persuaded Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords to change affiliation to independent and to support him. On June 6, 2001, Daschle was the majority leader and Lott was playing second fiddle again.

Lott and I discussed those political machinations and while he clearly admired Daschle's political skills, there was a great deal of personal bitterness evident that day. That was one reason he was in Montana campaigning for a long-shot Republican who was taking on entrenched incumbent Sen. Max Baucus.

The challenger, a nice man named Mike Taylor who was best known as a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator, had little chance and was soundly defeated in the fall despite his mustache, teeth and pierce-nez eyeglasses.

Still, Lott was working the stump, making fiery speeches and meeting with the local media. I found him a pleasant man who seemed willing to talk politics all day long. The Republicans did regain control of the Senate and two years later Daschle was voted out of office.

Soon our conversation turned to another majority leader, perhaps the most powerful one ever: Lyndon Baines Johnson.

LBJ took the post, which is not in the Constitution and didn't even formally exist until the 1920s, and made it a source of great power in 1955. The Texas senator was almost a co-president with Republican Dwight Eisenhower and helped create NASA, passed the Interstate Highway Bill and the first major Civil Rights bill in almost a century and escorted Hawaii and Alaska into the union.

His domination of the halls of Congress is best explained in Robert Caro's book "Master of the Senate," the third in Caro's series on LBJ. I had just finished the book and so had Lott and we discussed Johnson, his outsize personality and the way politics had changed in the past four decades.

I asked Lott what he had thought of the first two books in the series: "Path to Power" and "Means of Ascent."

The Mississippi senator and his aide seemed surprised. "You mean there's two other books?" Lott said.

Yes, I said, and a fourth one was planned on LBJ's presidency. He had his staffer jot down a note.

Then it was time for Lott to head out for another campaign appearance and then some fishing, so we parted in a most friendly man. Lott's shiny and vigorously controlled hair was smooth and so was his manner. It was a pleasant interview on a warm autumn Saturday morning.

A few days after I met with Lott, his career as majority leader ended after he praised the 1948 presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond, who ran on an outspoken segregationist platform.

"When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it," Lott said. "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."

That was widely decried as racist and Lott swiftly apologized. Still, he was forced to step aside as majority leader and this time there would not be a return to power.

On Dec. 20, 2002, he stepped down as the leader of Senate Republicans. But he remained in the Senate for five more years and will now apparently go to work as a high-powered — and highly paid — lobbyist. His career in Washington will continue in a new role.

It's something else he has in common with Daschle.

Tom Lawrence is the editor of The Rapid City Weekly News and was editor of The Whitefish Pilot from 1998-2003. Contact him at (605) 341-0086 ext. 15 or by e-mail at tom@rcweeklynews.com.