From The Hill:Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), one of the most seasoned political observers in Congress, says that even his most ambitious colleagues — including Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) — don’t have the right stuff to win the White House.
“I don’t think any senator can win the nomination,” Lott told The Hill in a wide-ranging luncheon interview. “If they get the nomination, they won’t be elected president.” In fact, he said the only way a senator could be elected president is if both parties nominate a senator.
“I don’t think senators make good candidates, actually, because of what we do. If you’re in the Senate for 10 or 15 years, there’s a good chance you’ve voted on both sides of every issue” — something that can be exploited in campaign television ads, as it was to the detriment of the Democrats’ 2004 candidate, Sen. John Kerry, Lott said.
Lott made his comments at a time when Frist and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), and others are considering presidential bids. He said the nominee is likely to be a current or former governor or big-city mayor. He mentioned Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.) and even Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour as possible Republican nominees.