LOTT HAS LET VERY LITTLE STAND IN WAY OF HIS POLITICAL AMBITION

THE OFTEN-STRAINED relationship between Sens. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Trent Lott., R-Miss., came full circle last week when the presumptive Republican nominee announced his resignation from the Senate.

Dole's sudden departure caps an uneasy working relationship between the majority leader and his top deputy. Two weeks earlier, Dole had revealed his plans to a close circle of intimates that included his wife and Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour.But the ambitious Lott, who's the odds-on favorite to replace Dole as Senate majority leader, didn't learn of Dole's intentions until an aide called him just minutes before the announcement. Lott was on the House floor attending a ceremony honoring former House Minority Leader Bob Michel of Illinois when he learned that the job he's been coveting was becoming vacant. Once the news was out, Lott wasted no time in launching his campaign for the top spot.

Only five months ago, it was Lott who surprised Dole by going on television to denounce President Clinton's troop deployment in Bosnia. Dole supported the deployment, while Lott chose the politically easy route of opposing Clinton. Afterward, Dole was furious at his deputy for grandstanding before the cameras without consulting him first.

It wasn't the first time Lott let loyalty and decorum take a back seat to personal ambition. Only months earlier, Lott, as majority whip, sought to allay concerns that he would push a more confrontational agenda on Dole. "There won't be a separate agenda," Lott said in 1994. "I'm going to ride shotgun for the leader."

Since winning election to the Senate in 1988 after 15 years in the House, Lott has often been too busy promoting himself to ride shotgun for anybody. A ruthless and shrewd political operator, Lott leapfrogged the Senate seniority system when he took away the No. 2 job from Sen. Alan K. Simpson, R-Wyo., in 1994. Just weeks after reassuring Simpson that he had no plans to challenge him for the job of majority whip, Lott entered the race.

From the earliest days of the Clinton administration, Lott has let little stand in the way of his political ambitions.

Lott's impassioned crusades against the ravages of big government frequently stop at the Mississippi state line. A year ago, we reported on Lott's efforts to steer a $1 billion federal project - and hundreds of jobs - from Utah to Mississippi. Officials at NASA nixed the proposed move of the space shuttle nozzle production facility after a confidential agency assessment found that the relocation alone would have cost taxpayers more than $850 million.

Lott may look like an ideological purist next to the pragmatic Dole. But the recent past suggests that opportunism, not purity, will be the hallmark of the next majority leader of the U.S. Senate.