Lott honors Gorton, challenges Washington to vote McCain

MINNEAPOLIS - Trent Lott, the former Senate Majority Leader from Mississippi, spoke to the Washington delegation this morning with an address full of jokes, old Senate stories, southern military history and recollections of the good times he has spend in Washington state.

He also complimented the Washington delegation on their organization for all getting together in the same room for breakfast.

"We Mississippians just kind of wander around the hotel lobby hung over," he joked.

Lott also touched on the idea of friendship and working together. He told stories of his camaraderie with former Sen. Slade Gorton, and the accomplishments that their friendship, which he said was very true, allowed them to achieve.

"What is wrong with Washington today," Lott said, "there is no camaraderie. There is just no time for it."

But in older times before constant media avails he and Gorton used to get lunch on Saturdays, sometimes with Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Lott said the only thing that bothered him about Gorton was that he was so much smarter than him, and compared him favorably with Dick Cheney, saying they were both quiet men, and on the rare occasion that they spoke out, everyone would lean forward to listen.

"I've been to Whidbey Island," he even said of his local experience. "We played this weird game he had called pickleball, where he got to make up all the rules."

One of three inventors of pickleball was Republican Rep. Joel Pritchard, who represented Washington's 1st District, in the 1960s on Bainbridge Island.

Lott closed by talking about the presidential campaign in Mississippi, which has the country's largest proportion of African American voters, who he predicted would go largely for Obama.

"We'll have a challenge but we're going to do the job," he said of the Magnolia State. "We're going to carry Mississippi. I challenge you, will you do it in Washington?"

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