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Today is the last day of November. Four weeks ago today, for the first time in 52 years, a Senate leader was defeated and history was made. A good deal of the post-election commentary has been reviewed and discussed on this site, along with your letters and thoughts. All this will continue, but at a NEW LOCATION in the blogosphere. SDP has generously asked me to join "South Dakota Politics"--go there now and help answer an important question I've posted...again, here's the link.
The St. Louis newspaper interviewed Senator Durbin of Illinois, who noted how Daschle handled judicial filibusters and also commented on Senator Reid's comment that he might block Justice Thomas from being Chief Justice, but not Justice Scalia.
A reader in Washington state has some thoughts on the comparison between Tom Daschle's 2004 loss and Tom Foley's 1994 loss:
I enjoyed you blog during the campaign and occasionally stop by to see what you are talking about. The comparison of the two Toms is interesting. Washington is a “blue state” only because Seattle goes to the Democrats by about 85/15, the rest of the state is either swing or decidedly Republican. Tom Foley represented the Spokane area and a big chunk of rural Washington State that is most assuredly “red”. George Nethercutt should have been an up and coming politician after knocking off Foley. The race was set up nicely for a challenger.
From the Reno newspaper:
Reid will become one of the main faces of the Democratic Party when he takes over in January from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
That can be politically dangerous when your party is out of power. Daschle lost re-election in South Dakota to John Thune, a Republican strongly backed by the White House.
Daschle was labeled an obstructionist by Republicans. And he was forced to take positions in support of Senate Democrats that sometimes conflicted with interests of South Dakotans, said University of South Dakota political science professor Bill Richardson.
“I think what happened to Tom Daschle is a cautionary tale to Sen. Reid,” Richardson said.
Here are Bruce Walker's comments on the election entitled "The Tale of Two Toms." The second "Tom" is Foley. Excerpt:
Ten years ago, another Tom from another state in flyover country, the leader of House Democrats, Speaker Tom Foley supported litigation against term limits which had been voted into law by the people of the State of Washington. Tom Foley, like Tom Daschle, had done years of constituent service. He brought home the bacon; he supported the interests of his district. He was the second most powerful person in the federal government, yet he lost reelection to an unknown challenger.
Why? Washington, unlike South Dakota, is not profoundly conservative. It is a swing state leaning Left. But the people of the State of Washington had determined that they wanted to limit the length of elected officials, so that no one would grow so accustomed to power that he felt entitled to power.
Michelle Cottle in this week's Time magazine:
Democrats found this election discombobulating because no matter how often they hear about a divided America, most blue staters — especially coastal elite types — still don't quite grasp that their world view is not shared by everyone. Day to day, liberals have the luxury of ignoring conservative America. Only occasionally does some red-state phenomenon like The Passion of the Christ intrude on our consciousness, and even then it's usually because of some outrage it sparks among a particular interest group on the left. Social conservatives, by contrast, cannot escape the world view of blue staters. Every time they go to the movies or turn on the television or open their child's school books they're reminded that traditional values ain't what they used to be. (Many liberals will be horrified to hear that two-thirds of Americans think creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science classes.) Forget aggressively raunchy shows like Sex and the City or Temptation Island. Even the mainstream megahit Friends featured a parade of bed hopping, divorce, lesbianism and out-of-wedlock births that would have raised howls of protest not so long ago.
If anything, social conservatives don't realize the full depth of blue-state America's condescension. They assume that liberals sit around all day thinking about how much smarter or more sophisticated or more enlightened they are than social conservatives. Truth be told, most of the time liberals don't bother to think about social conservatives at all. Except at election time, when they suddenly become aware of them as some frightening, incomprehensible menace to their otherwise comfortably progressive society.
George Will's Newsweek article this week is about filibusters.
SDP noted yesterday's New York Times editorial about certain Democrats being mad at Senator Frist for coming to South Dakota to campaign against Daschle (also note today's NYT's editorial about the Senate and the filibuster, which Daschle will be remembered for). As to Senators campaigning against one another and the idea that this "unprecedented," note this about South Dakota Republican Senator turned silverite Richard Pettigrew and his 1900 re-election effort (pre-direct election, i.e. when state legislatures still picked Senators) from Hebert Schell's classic History of South Dakota (p. 240):
A number of nationally known figures came to South Dakota to make the renegade Senator their special target. Among them were Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican nominee for vice president, and Marcus A. Hanna, chairman of the Republican National Committee, both of whom had been subjected to personal abuse in the Senate by Pettigrew.
Pettigrew lost.
There have been a flood of letters in the newspapers about the results of the Senate race. Here's one:
The weeping and gnashing of teeth have already begun; surely plagues and darkness will soon follow. Who will keep the law of gravity in place, now that Sen. Tom Daschle has been cast out? Will the Earth now tumble perilously into the sun? Will we be like helpless baby birds with our mouths open waiting for the sustenance that never comes?
Here's another from the other side entitled "Shame on S.D.":
I came to South Dakota when Sen. Tom Daschle first came into office. I have lived my whole life answering questions from people, such as - "Where is South Dakota?" and "Is there indoor plumbing in South Dakota?" ... All the Sen.-elect John Thune supporters think it's time for a change. The change will be that South Dakota will not get the appropriate focus on issues that are important to us. Our state lost a man of integrity and replaced him with a man who will agree with anything the Republican Party tells him. Shame on you, South Dakota.
Dave Kranz of the Argus Leader has a column in today's paper about committee assignments. Contrast it to this story in The Hill, which notes that the GOP caucus just changed the rules allowing Frist more power to make committee appointments. The Democratic leader already had the power to make committee assignments, according to The Hill.
