When I saw the headline that Trent Lott will be resigning before the year’s end, the first thing that crossed my mind was “Good riddance.” The second thing that crossed my mind was “Can we get a real conservative to replace him in the Senate GOP leadership”?

Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, plans to resign his seat before the end of the year, congressional and White House officials said Monday.
Lott, 66, scheduled two news conferences in his home state later in the day to reveal his plans. According to congressional and White House officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement, Lott intends to resign effective the end of the year.

First, let me state that I won’t miss Trent Lott. When I first started following politics, he was a decent, though not outstanding, legislator. He’s gone downhill since. When Porkbusters tried policing the money being spent on Katrina reconstruction, Lott took offense, essentially saying that it’s none of their business and that this is the way things were always done. Porkbusters pushed back, saying that it’s our taxes that are getting spent and that it is our business because he’s a public servant.

Then came the immigration debate. After Lott signed onto the bill, it didn’t take long before he lashed out at We The People and conservative talk radio. It didn’t dawn on him that he served We The People, that we didn’t just have to sit back and accept Washington’s decisions.

It’s time for the GOP to cleanse themselves of dinosaurs like Trent Lott. In Lott’s mind, We The People are there to elect him, then sit down and shut up. In We The People’s mind, he’s supposed to do the right thing in terms of protecting our sovereignty and being frugal with our taxes.

He had clearly lost his way on both important issues. In reality, his love of pork was emblematic of how the Senate GOP mirrored Senate Democrats. There’s nothing to be gained by that. In fact, they’ve refused to learn the lesson that we’re trying to teach them, which is that we won’t contribute to them until they start acting like Republicans.

That’s why we need a fresh conservative voice as GOP Whip. The next Whip should come from this short list: John Cornyn, Tom Coburn or Jim DeMint. If they nominate another fossil for the job, we should express our displeasure with them by withholding campaign contributions to the NRSC, instead directing the money towards genuinely conservative candidates.

According to this MSNBC article, Lott is asking Gov. Haley Barbour to pick Chip Pickering as his replacement. Sen. Lott is also backing Jon Kyl to replace him as Minority Whip.

I’d be ok with Kyl, though I’d prefer Jim DeMint, John Cornyn or Tom Coburn.

The Lott resignation is good news to reform-minded conservatives. We won’t start winning sustainable majorities again until we’re seen as a party serious about reforms, accountability and fiscal sanity.

It’s been obvious that Trent Lott had left those camps ages ago.

Technorati Tags: Trent Lott, Resignation, Senate John Cornyn, Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, Reforms, Earmarks, Katrina, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. Can Newt move to Mississippi?

   Comment by John Houghton — November 26, 2007 @ 10:27 am

2. Any of the three mentioned, Coburn, Conryn or DeMint would be excellent…but I hope to see DeMint get the job because he seems to have publicly addressed a broader range of issues than the others and is less of a “one trick pony”. I was very pleased with his stance on Immigration while the Sr. Senator from SC (Graham) fritted away the last of his “goodwill” from the people of SC. DeMint certainly seems to have both the courage and the skills to make a major mark on this congress.

   Comment by GoDaddy — November 26, 2007 @ 6:12 pm

3. Gosh, maybe the guvner of MS will select a Republican now, instead of some jackass wannabee that seems to be the favorite for politicians…

   Comment by Carlos — November 27, 2007 @ 9:31 am

4. No, it looks like it will be Pickering.

   You may remember him as the religious nut from the movie Borat.

   Comment by Chris Bell — November 30, 2007 @ 11:51 pm