By any measure, he’s made a remarkable comeback after being ostracized for seeming to endorse past segregation practices at a birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond. He isn’t sick, he says he isn’t fighting off scandal, and at 66 he’s still in his prime, by Senate standards. Even so, he’s been in Congress for 35 years, and it’s not unreasonable to think he might want to do something with his life other than save the country from Democrats. At a press conference on Monday in his hometown of Pascagoula, Lott recalled Sunday’s sermon and how the preacher drew from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

The words reinforced the decision he and his wife Tricia had made some time ago. In fact, Lott had toyed with not running again in ‘06, but then Katrina struck. He found it unthinkable to walk away and not use all the influence he had built up over the decades to bring federal aid to the hurricane-stricken areas. The story he tells of how he reached the conclusion it was time to go is both high-minded and human, and it gets more human as events unfold in the aftermath of the transfer of power on Capitol Hill. Responding to an electorate angry about corruption in Washington, the new Democratic majority, joined by many Republicans, tightened ethics rules, banning gifts from lobbyists and rides on corporate jets, and doubling the so-called “cooling-off period”—the period between a member’s exit from Congress and the time he or she can start lobbying on Capitol Hill—from one year to two.

The news that Lott was abruptly leaving the Senate was only hours old before the talk started in Washington that the real reason he was stepping down before the end of the year is to skirt the new rules. Lott fueled the speculation when he said in his press conference that he planned to stay engaged in legislative activities. He is expected to join former Louisiana senator John Breaux at the prestigious Patton Boggs lobbying and law firm, becoming the Republican counterweight to Breaux, a Democrat. The suspicion in Washington is that the fix has been in for some time—i.e., that Lott was waiting for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to safely win re-election this November so he could appoint Lott’s successor in the Senate. The betting is that it will be Rep. Chip Pickering, a 44-year-old Mississippi congressman who was a legislative staff assistant for Lott before winning his House seat. Pickering is the son of Judge Charles Pickering, a longtime friend and ally of Lott’s, whose nomination by President Bush for a federal judgeship was blocked by Senate Democrats.

Lott fought hard for Judge Pickering, whose nomination foundered over his hard-edged views on civil rights, women’s rights and workers’ rights. Lott thought Pickering had been unfairly judged, and seeing his son in the Senate could help set things right in the longtime legislator’s mind. Barbour plans to name Lott’s replacement soon and then hold a special election in November ‘08, giving Pickering (or any alternatives looming larger in Barbour’s mind) a year’s head start to win the seat. Democrats are challenging the GOP on the law, claiming Barbour is required to hold a special election within 90 days. However that is resolved, it’s a virtual certainty the seat will remain in Republican hands; Democrats just want to force the GOP to spend money they don’t have defending yet another open seat.

Lott is the sixth senior Republican senator to announce his retirement, along with 17 House members. It’s not as much fun to be in the minority, as Lott knows firsthand. He’s been back and forth six times between the minority and the majority. If the rumor mill is correct and Lott joins the ever-growing ranks of K Street insiders, he will be in good company with Breaux, who once famously said, “I can’t be bought, but I can be rented.” The name and contacts of a former senator, particularly one who’s been in the leadership, is worth millions in the lobbying community. Breaux wrote a column earlier this year in The Hill defending his second career as a lobbyist as a legitimate extension of what he did for 32 years in Congress: helping individuals and companies understand the process and advocate for their positions. He makes it all sound very benign. Either way, it’s lucrative, and Lott is not a rich man. According to Senate filings, he’s merely a millionaire, but probably not for long.