Some Damage Control Work Remains for GOP

Trent Lott’s decision to step down as Senate Republican leader abruptly ends a political firestorm that had consumed the party. But some Republicans believe the GOP needs to do more to recover from a controversy that reached beyond the fate of a single senator into the soul of his entire party.

Republicans are hoping that Lott’s departure will send a clear message that the GOP does not tolerate anything smacking of sympathy with racism, and reinforce President Bush’s determination to make his party more welcoming to minorities.

“We had a problem. We took care of it,” said William J. Bennett, a conservative commentator who had called for Lott’s resignation. “The fact that [Lott’s] comments provoked such a strong reaction and such quick action is to our credit.”

But at least for now, the episode could be a setback for Republicans on two fronts. It may damage the party’s image among swing voters throughout the country who embrace ethnic and racial tolerance. And as an emotional reminder of the South’s legacy of racism, the furor has been tantamount to a get-out-the-vote drive for blacks, who vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

“This whole affair resurfaced all the lingering negative stories about the Republican Party and race -- and reminded Democrats why they are Democrats,” a senior Republican strategist said.

That’s why some Republicans believe that, even with Lott gone as a party leader, Bush and the GOP have work to do to truly put the controversy behind them -- an impulse that could give a big boost to the agenda of “compassionate conservatism” that Bush has advocated but, in the view of some, not always made a priority.

“I think we’re going to have to make a very clear statement on the issue of race relations,” Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said on CNN. “Clearly we need to deal with it as a nation and we need to deal with it as a party.” Said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.): “There’s been this loud wake-up call to the Republican Party.... Stop talking like the party of Lincoln and start acting like it.”

The controversy’s outcome is good news for Bush, whose stinging public criticism of his own party’s Senate leader was probably the single biggest factor in forcing Lott to step down.

“Bush has emerged stronger,” said Merle Black, an expert in Southern politics at Emory University in Atlanta. “He’s going to have a Senate leader who’s more in sync with him. He’s established his leadership of the Republican Party.”

Lott’s resignation gives Bush and Republicans in Congress an opportunity to recapture some of the initiative they gained in the November midterm elections -- and then proceeded to squander after Lott said the nation would have been better off if Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign had been successful.

It was an offhand comment Dec. 5 at Thurmond’s 100th birthday party that Lott, in repeated apologies, said was simply meant to honor the South Carolinian, not to embrace segregation.

But the controversy rocked the GOP just as it was celebrating an election that increased its House majority and gave the party control of the Senate.

Fevered preparations for a fast start in the new Congress -- including early action on spending bills, an economic stimulus package and an extension of unemployment benefits -- were undercut when Senate Republicans were plunged into unrelenting soul-searching about the future of their leadership.

Even with Lott gone, it’s clear that the controversy has taken a toll. “I don’t sense that anyone thinks that we go now into [the new Congress] with the same momentum we had in November,” a senior Republican aide said.

Some Republicans hope the broader damage to the party from the Lott controversy will be contained because most voters do not take their cues about a party’s message from the Senate leadership.

“It is bad,” a Republican strategist close to the White House said. “But most of these swing voters take their view of the broad value stuff -- tolerance, compassion -- from the president.”

Republicans will be pushing their legislative agenda in a dramatically different political context than a month ago. Race has been catapulted to the front burner of the policy debates, after an election in which it was generally not a big issue.

“If there is a silver lining to the Lott controversy, it may be a new emerging dialogue on race,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College at the City University of New York. “One of the positive outgrowths of this episode may be a more full and honest assessment of the American dilemma at the turn of the century. Exactly what that will mean for Republican legislative priorities is unclear.”

“There will be heightened sensitivity to the issue and to trying to demonstrate what a lot of [Senate Republicans] feel they are about,” said a source close to Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, who is expected to become the majority leader. “Whether that translates into legislation or not is not clear.”

Brownback has suggested that the Senate set up a special committee to discuss racial reconciliation.

Some Republicans say they should do a better job of explaining how GOP initiatives such as school vouchers and spurring economic growth benefit minorities.

“The Republican agenda is going to be one that is going to be filled with hope,” said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.).

As they sort through the aftermath of the Lott controversy, Republicans are already divided on what it means for their position on affirmative action. Specter, for one, wrote to Bush this week urging him to support the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program that is being challenged before the Supreme Court.

“The spotlight which has been placed on this issue as a result of Sen. Lott’s statement should lead our party to a closer examination of this matter,” Specter said in his letter to the president.

But Bennett argues the opposite, that Republicans should oppose affirmative action for the same reason they deplore the segregation Lott seemed to embrace. Racial preferences in university admissions “is a system of segregation as well.”

Democrats, meanwhile, express skepticism that Republicans will match their words with deeds.

“Now the challenge of President Bush and the Republican Party is to finally demonstrate in substantive policy initiatives their commitment to expand opportunity for all Americans,” said a statement by the Congressional Black Caucus, which applauded Lott for stepping down.

One thing is clear: Members of both parties are now likely to tread more carefully around the racial issue.

“Everyone in public life will be even more careful than in the past about any comments that relate, however tangentially, about race,” said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster.

“It’s still a deeply emotional subject in American life, even though most Americans have gotten beyond their obsession with race.”

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Times staff writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this report.