WASHINGTON - Trent Lott, facing the first explicit call from a fellow Republican for him to resign as Senate majority leader, insisted yesterday that he had enough support to survive the racially charged outcry surrounding him and to keep his post.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, one of his party's key moderates, became the first Republican in Congress to declare that Lott should step aside.
"It's time for a change," Chafee said in an interview with WPRO-AM in Providence, R.I. "The only way to have a change, in my opinion, is for the White House to come in here and say to Majority Leader Trent Lott, 'I think it's time for a change.'"
Showing no sign of backing down, Lott complained about reports "seeping out" of the White House "that have not been helpful."
He was referring to news reports that he has lost the confidence of President Bush and his advisers, who fear that the crisis might hurt Republican efforts to reach out to minority voters.
Lott insisted that he feels the president wants him to remain as majority leader.
"I believe that they do support what I'm trying to do here, and the president will continue to do so," Lott said in Mississippi.
Lott's core support among a handful of veteran Republican senators remained in the face of the furor that erupted after he made remarks this month praising the 1948 segregationist presidential campaign of Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
Still, Lott's leadership post was very much in peril as senior senators and strategists canvassed the Senate's 50 other Republicans about whether they would stick with Lott and when they might make their final decision.
The Senate's Republicans are scheduled to meet Jan. 6 to discuss the fate of Lott, whose problems began Dec. 5 at a 100th birthday celebration for the retiring Thurmond.
At the party, Lott declared that his home state of Mississippi was proud to have voted in 1948 for the South Carolinian, who ran for president that year as a "Dixiecrat" candidate embracing racial segregation.
Lott added that "if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."
Since then, Lott has apologized repeatedly for his words and for some of his votes in Congress that opposed causes important to minorities.
In an interview Monday night on Black Entertainment Television, Lott acknowledged that he had been part of "immoral leadership" in the South and of a society that was "wrong and wicked" on issues of race.
At least 12 senators have expressed support for Lott since the outcry erupted. But if the senators decide at the Jan. 6 meeting to hold a new leadership election, Lott would need 26 votes to remain majority leader.
Most senators have not declared a position. Because leadership elections usually occur by secret ballot, declarations of support do not amount to vote commitments.
Though Chafee's liberal leanings place him outside the Republican mainstream in the Senate, his opinions are important in a closely divided chamber.
Many have speculated that Chafee might be considering defecting from the party, as Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont, now an independent, did last year.
Weakened standing
Another fissure in Republican support for Lott emerged yesterday when Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, a conservative who has backed Lott since the furor began, suggested that he might be open to choosing a new leader in light of Lott's weakened standing.
"The question now arises as to whether Senator Lott has been so unfairly tainted that he can no longer effectively serve as our Republican leader," Inhofe said in a statement, in which he also said that Lott's situation has, "in typical Washington fashion," been "blown out of proportion."
"If it comes to a vote to replace Senator Lott, we are fortunate to have many able senators in our party who would be excellent leaders," Inhofe said.
He mentioned the three senators who are the most likely potential challengers to Lott - Inhofe's fellow Oklahoman, Sen. Don Nickles, the outgoing Republican whip; Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, who led the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee during the past Congress; and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is slated to become the whip, the second-ranking Republican leader, next month.
Chafee's call for Lott to step aside came on a day when Lott took pains to present a confident front to his Mississippi constituents and to the nation. Lott said he is "hanging in there" and will not give up either his leadership post or his Senate seat.
Bush has tried to distance himself from Lott's troubles. Last week, he issued a harsh public rebuke of Lott's comments and directed his aides not to comment further on the matter except to say that Bush does not believe Lott needs to resign.
The president and his staff have studiously avoided taking a position on a potential challenge to Lott's leadership.
"In all potential leadership races on Capitol Hill, if there is a leadership race, the White House plays no role and will play no role and offers no thoughts and opinions and proffers no advice about this matter," Ari Fleischer, Bush's spokesman, said yesterday.
In a phone call with Lott yesterday, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, told the Senate leader that news reports suggesting that the White House wants to get rid of Lott are "unfair," Fleischer said, "because the White House is not playing a role and is not getting involved in the leadership race."
"Andy said to him the president does not think you should resign," Fleischer said.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell expressed a view similar to Bush's yesterday. He sternly criticized Lott's statements at Thurmond's party, saying that he was "disappointed" and that "I deplore the sentiments" expressed.
But Powell, the most prominent black official in the Bush administration, would not say whether he thought Lott should remain as majority leader.
"I will let the Senate and members of the Senate deal with this issue," he said.
Jeb Bush weighs in
Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, the president's brother, had harsher words.
He said that Lott was not performing well under pressure and that the situation had forced Republicans to spend too much time defending themselves on the delicate matter of race relations.
"It doesn't help to have this swirling controversy that Senator Lott, in spite of his enormous political skills, doesn't seem to be able to handle well," the Florida governor told the Miami Herald.
"Something's going to have to change. This can't be the topic of conversation over the next week," the governor said.
Lott's defenders are increasingly blaming reporters and the sometimes ferocious culture of Washington politics for their leader's troubles and signaling that they will remain firmly behind him.
"My gosh, here's a very good man who's made a terrible mistake, and I think at this point it's piling on to just keep piling on him," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah told CNN on Tuesday night.
At least one Lott supporter suggested that this very factor might be a reason for Lott to decide to step aside.
"The political arena is a very poisoned arena," said retiring Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma, the only black Republican in Congress.
"It is an arena that likes to attack, and I hope Senator Lott will weigh that," Watts said. "If it was me, I would not put my family, nor my grandchildren, nor my party through that."