Democrashield.com

The headline on CNN: “Republican Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi intends to resign by the end of the year, sources tell CNN.”

Lott is the GOP’s second-highest ranking Senator, after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He left the leadership several years ago after making a racially offensive remark at a birthday celebration for the late Strom Thurmond; he climbed his way back up after the GOP’s crippling defeat in 2006.

In terms of replacing him, I’m not sure what Mississippi’s law is on this. But if former MS Attorney General Mike Moore (the most popular Democrat in the state) wanted to go for it, he could certainly give the Republicans a run for their money.

UPDATED: Read the story on MSNBC here.

Who will newly re-elected governor Haley Barbour choose? Right now the name being floated around is Rep. Chip Pickering. And in terms of Lott’s position as Minority Whip, Arizona’s John Kyl supposedly has the departing Senator’s backing.

UPDATE II: More from The Politico.

This may spark a fight in the GOP leadership–even if Lott backs Kyl, Senators John Cornyn and Lamar Alexander (who challenged Lott for the position after th 2006 elections) may turn this into an internal GOP battle. That’s the last thing Senate Republicans need right now–a high-profile leadership battle.

UPDATE III: It’s being reported that Lott’s announcement comes as a surprise, since he appeared to be enjoying his role in the Republican leadership. The current meme being shaped is that he wants to go to K Street to make a fortune as a lobbyist, but if he waits into 2008 he’ll be hamstrung by new Democratic laws aimed at closing the Congressional-lobbyist revolving door.

But here’s some baseless speculation for you: what if this has something to do with it? If Lott’s the man involved, when the story breaks it would hurt the GOP far more to have him as their #2 guy in the Senate than as a K Street lobbyist. Who knows, maybe he cut a deal–resign and the story won’t be made public. Again, this is little more than baseless speculation–there are plenty of prominent Republican Senators out there, and who knows if Flynt is doing more than stirring some muck. But it’s something to think about.

UPDATE IV: Cliff Schecter and a few others had the same thought I did. It’s still baseless speculation, but who knows? At one point, it was baseless speculation that Larry Craig was gay, and then look at what happened.

FINAL UPDATE: A final word from John Aravosis, who I have a lot of respect for.  There is nothing out there to indicate that Lott is resigning for any other reason than the one he’s giving.  If something else comes up, I’ll certainly post on it, but for now it’s time to leave this one in the category of “baseless speculation” and move on.