Trent Lott on Principles & ValuesRepublican Jr Senator (MS) |
The ragtag army of press representatives had been there ever since the remarks I'd made about Sen. Strom Thurmond at an affair celebrating his 100th birthday.
The pundits had transformed those forty words into a racial furor ten days earlier. My innocent and thoughtless remark was treated by most of the media as a hanging offense.
The phones had rarely been still. During this morning alone, I'd taken calls of support from three key Republican senators; they all pledged to back whatever decision I made. There also were calls from other GOP senators, terrified that the spreading political brushfire might engulf the Senate as a whole.
After all my editing, the statement came down to one sentence: "In the interest of pursuing the best possible agenda for the future of our country, I will not seek to remain as majority leader of the US Senate for the 108th Congress effective Jan. 6, 2003."
Occasionally the pelicans dive into the Gulf, then soar from the surface with their catch.
What Morris proposed was a highly unusual alliance between the president of the US and the majority leader of the opposing party, with himself serving as clandestine intermediary. It may have been unique in the history of American politics.
Morris wanted me to forge a working relationship with Bill Clinton to enact a series of landmark bills. Morris embraced my suggestions for major welfare reform, a balanced budget act, that would include Medicare cuts, and immigration reform.
After thinking it over, I agreed to Dick's unorthodox suggestion [even though it would hurt the GOP's presidential chances in 1996]. Why, you might ask? I've always had a great enthusiasm for making law--and I believe that was why my constituents sent me to the Senate in the first place.
An openly skeptical Republican leadership postponed the impeachment debate when the bombing started. Trent Lott publicly disputed the President's judgment. "Both the timing and the policy are subject to question," he said of the military action. Lott backpedaled when his statement was interpreted as in indication that partisan politics came before national security in this Congress.
The House leadership was determined to force a vote on impeachment in the lame duck session, before the Republican majority was reduced to 11 members in January, On Dec. 18, as bombs fell on Iraq, the impeachment debate began again.
Morris's specialty was identifying the swing voters who see-sawed between the two parties. His advice was sometimes off-the-wall; you had to sift through it to extract the useful insights and ideas. And he had the people skills of a porcupine. Nonetheless, I thought Morris's analysis might be instructive, if we could involve him carefully and quietly. With his skeptical views about politics & people, Morris served as a counterweight to the ever optimistic Bill Clinton.
By 1991, Morris had picked up more Republican candidates, and nobody in the Democratic power structure liked or trusted him
The Adherents.com website is an independent project and is not supported by or affiliated with any organization (academic, religious, or otherwise).
Such factors as religious service attendance, belief, practice, familiarity with doctrine, belief in certain creeds, etc., may be important to sociologists, religious leaders, and others. But these are measures of religiosity and are usually not used academically to define a person’s membership in a particular religion. It is important to recognize there are various levels of adherence, or membership within religious traditions or religious bodies. There’s no single definition, and sources of adherent statistics do not always make it clear what definition they are using.
OnTheIssues.org interprets the 2006 AU scores as follows:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. AU is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.
Americans United is a national organization with members in all 50 states. We are headquartered in Washington, D.C., and led by the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director. AU has more than 75,000 members from all over the country. They include people from all walks of life and from various faith communities, as well as those who profess no particular faith. We are funded by donations from our members and others who support church-state separation. We do not seek, nor would we accept, government funding.