Resign-O-Rama: GOP Woes Worsen

Lott's Departure Precedes Ethics Restrictions
Veteran Republicans Opt Out, Making 2008 a Tougher Fight

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is calling it quits only one year into his six-year term, giving Republican leaders one more headache as they head into an already tough 2008 election cycle.

Lott announced in Pascagoula Monday that he would resign from the Senate before the end of the year, becoming the latest in a string of prominent Republican lawmakers to leave Congress.

In the Senate, GOP veterans John Warner of Virginia, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Wayne Allard of Colorado have all, for various reasons, already decided not to seek re-election.
Those departures are more troublesome than Lott's for Republicans because Warner, Hagel, Domenici and Allard are all from battleground states.

Lott and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Ida., who opted not to resign after an embarrassing scandal but will not run for re-election next year, are both from states considered reliably Republican.

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I think some of this Republican exodus is due, in part, to people trying to preserve a "personal legacy" as a lawmaker or prominent American and nobody wants their name and their body of life work to be intimately associated with Bush or even the official tie-in to the Republican Party at this time in our country's history. They have some realization that history will not be kind to Bush and his bots.

Well, and in ol' Trent's case he's got a fat lobbying career ahead of him and he has to skedaddle out of Washington to beat a deadline in order to transition to lobbyist.