More GOP Criticism For Lott

As embattled Sen. Trent Lott tries to line up support in his fight for his Republican leadership post, more members of his own party are starting to question his ability to lead.

Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe was the latest Republican senator to suggest Lott may not be able to hold on. Inhofe, a conservative who had supported Lott, said Thursday that Lott's "ability as a leader dissipates on a daily basis."

He put Lott's chances of being majority leader when the Senate convenes in January at 30 percent, but he predicted Lott would not step aside.

Inhofe also criticized Lott's apology for voting against a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., saying it was a responsible conservative position. Oklahoma's senior senator, Don Nickles, was the first to call for a new caucus election.

A second conservative Republican, Sen. Craig Thomas of Wyoming, suggested change might be inevitable. "I don't have a strong feeling about the personality that's there. ... I don't condone what he did and I'm not opposed to change either."

Lott, 61, was back home in his native Mississippi and had no public schedule planned for Thursday. With the Senate's 51 Republicans preparing for a Jan. 6 meeting on Lott's fate, advisers said he was telephoning colleagues for support.

On Wednesday, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, one of Congress' most liberal-leaning Republicans, became the first GOP senator to publicly call for new party leadership, telling reporters, "It's time to make a change."

Asked if he believed Lott's remarks made Republicans look like racists, Chafee said, "It's strong to say racist, but it doesn't help our party."

Senators who have spoken to Lott said he sounded determined to fight for his leadership job, which he has held since 1996. He has been battling to retain the post, delivering numerous apologies, since his Dec. 5 remarks of regret that Sen. Strom Thurmond was not elected president when he ran on a segregationist platform in 1948.

"My impression is he's not going to step aside anytime soon," said one Republican senator who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't think he will. I've talked to him, and he seems firm in his commitment to weather the storm and press on."

After speaking Wednesday to Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, Lott sought to cast the White House as supporting him.

"I believe they do support what I am trying to do here and the president will continue to do so," he told reporters in Biloxi.

White House officials, however, were not issuing firm endorsements of Lott.

Asked to verify Lott's statement that Mr. Bush will continue to support him, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "I want to wait until I can read a transcript" of Lott's remarks.

At the same time, Fleischer and other White House officials sought to distance themselves from comments suggesting that the administration would favor Lott's removal because his continued presence could hinder Mr. Bush's re-election efforts.

"Andy said to him that he thought a lot of what he was reading was unfair to Lott because the White House is not playing a role and is not getting involved in the leadership race. Andy said to him the president does not think you should resign," Fleischer said.

Mr. Bush steered clear of the issue, as he has since criticizing Lott's comments last week. But in his first public words on the matter, Secretary of State Colin Powell — the administration's highest-ranking black — was critical.

"There was nothing about the 1948 election or the Dixiecrat agenda that should have been acceptable in any way to any American at that time or any American now," Powell told reporters.

At Thurmond's 100th birthday party, Lott boasted that Mississippi voted for the South Carolinian in his presidential run as a Dixiecrat.

"If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," he added. He made similar comments in 1980.

Since then, other aspects of Lott's record on race have come under scrutiny. These included his friend of the court brief on behalf of Bob Jones University in a case involving that school's ban on interracial dating, his votes against busing and extending the Voting Rights Act, his opposition to a holiday for Martin Luther King and his efforts as a college student to keep his fraternity all-white.

Nearly a dozen Senate Republicans — many of them longtime veterans — have publicly expressed support for Lott while criticizing his comments. They include Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Senate Republican.

But speculation continued on possible GOP replacements for Lott. Names mentioned included: Bill Frist of Tennessee, said to be the White House's choice; Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the No. 2 Senate Republican leader and a longtime Lott rival; Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Democrats said they saw an opportunity to push their agenda, including bills making hate crimes illegal, increasing the minimum wage, cutting taxes for minorities and the poor.

Former President Clinton said Republicans were hypocritical for attacking Lott.

"How can they jump on him when they're out there repressing, trying to run black voters away from the polls and running under the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina. … He just embarrassed them by saying in Washington what they do on the backroads every day," he said.

Republican icon Bob Dole sides with Lott, but even he's also openly wondering about Lott's survival, reports CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.

"Its way out of control," said Dole, a former Senate majority leader himself. "You can't get the genie back in the bottle."