Word: lotte
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After earning a B.A. in public administration, Lott enrolled in the Ole Miss law school. By now his parents were separated and unable to help him financially. He had saved some money from summer jobs at a root-beer stand in Pascagoula and at the local hospital as a janitor mopping rooms. He took out federal student loans. And he secured paid jobs with the university, first as a recruiter and later as a fund raiser for the alumni association, where he expanded his political network...
...Vietnam War was heating up, but Lott, like other students, enjoyed an exemption until his graduation from law school in 1967. By then he had married Tricia Thompson of Pascagoula and, according to Selective Service records, secured a "hardship" exemption because of the impending birth of their first child Chet. Lott says he was so focused on his studies and student political matters, such as getting soda machines in the dorms, that he didn't think much about either protesting the war or volunteering for it. Vietnam, like civil rights, was another uncomfortable subject to be ducked...
...young Lott family returned to Pascagoula, where Trent practiced law. But after less than a year, the district's veteran Congressman, William Colmer, chairman of the rules committee and a staunch segregationist, offered Lott a top staff job. The family packed their belongings into a green Pontiac Bonneville and set out for Washington, as Tricia put it, "to stay a couple of years and see if we liked...
When Colmer, a Democrat, in 1972 announced his retirement from the House, Lott declared his candidacy--as a Republican--and eventually won his mentor's endorsement. Lott proved an energetic and persuasive campaigner. As he later explained to his son, "If a little old lady with a cane and a mustache asks you to kiss her, you better do it and enjoy it, or she's gonna know it." Lott lost 15 lbs. that he didn't have to lose. He sometimes lost his voice. But he won the election...
Once in washington, Lott vowed to "fight against the ever increasing efforts of the so-called liberals to concentrate more power in the government in Washington." But he voted for more federal spending on the military, farm subsidies, rural public works projects and entitlement programs. The main federal activities he opposed were taxes and programs for the poor. When supply-side economics came along, it was a special godsend to Lott: a theology that encouraged tax cuts without spending cuts, a new way to avoid hard choices...