Don't Call Him the Comeback Kid -- Just Yet

By Matthew Cooper, Perry Bacon Jr.

Will Trent Lott rise again? Back in 2002, the Mississippi Republican's career seemed over. At a birthday party for Strom Thurmond, Lott quipped that America would have been "better off" if the centenarian had won his 1948 segregationist bid for President. Lott apologized profusely but was forced to abandon his post as Senate majority leader. Since then, Lott, 64, has slowly regained stature--so much so that insiders think if he stays in the Senate, he will return to a leadership post. Lott tells TIME he "certainly will" consider running for a top G.O.P. job if he seeks a fourth term next year. With Tennessee's Bill Frist set to retire in 2006, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell seems a shoo-in for majority leader, but Lott could win the No. 2 post--that of majority whip. Why? Because at a time when George W. Bush is faltering, it's hip to be a White House outsider. The President ensured Lott's ouster in 2002, and relations between the two have never been the same. Just last month Lott made headlines by suggesting top presidential adviser Karl Rove should leave the White House.

"[Lott] has the independence, street cred if you will, that a lot of members like," says a G.O.P. Senate aide whose boss wants Lott to run again. Many Senators fondly recall Lott's strategic vision when he was majority leader, and several conservatives have dismissed concerns that his comments from 2002 would hold him back, with Utah's Orrin Hatch saying "That's in the past." Moderates also like Lott. Maine's Olympia Snowe, one of his closest Senate friends, says she hopes Lott will run again. "He wants to make his state whole," says Snowe. And if he returns as a leader, his reputation may be refurbished too.