Daschle v. Thune

Change of Venue

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. 

Judges

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. 

From the Mailbag

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.

Reid

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.

Daschle and Foley

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.

How the Left Views the Election

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.

More on the Senate

George Will's Newsweek article this week is about filibusters.

The Senate

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. 

Letters

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.

Committees

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. 

Severance

This article about creating severance packages for Senator Daschle's staff has generated several emails, especially from the staff of former Congressmen from both parties saying they didn't get anything like this.  I'm not sure how common it is, but I've never heard of it and several emailers are in high dudgeon.  I can't imagine this being very popular in SD, but, then again, the Argus Leader is maintaining strict radio silence, i.e. they haven't said a word about it, so I don't think many people know about it.

Regionalism and Red v. Blue

Thomas Frank is the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" which makes the argument that Kansas is crazy to vote for Republicans on social issues, which should be subordinate to economic issues.  He's also written books about how obsessed the country is with the market and advertising etc.  Basically, it is standard Vance-Packard/C. Right Mills/Greening of America 1960s leftist social criticism updated to the present.  I have the Kansas book and will report on it soon (the election wasn't conducive to outside reading).  Anyway, Frank reviews a number of books today in the New York Times Book Review on the big question of political polarization, Red State v. Blue State, Metro v. Retro etc.  This is quite important for this race because, as you know, Eastern newspapers and commentators would often say 'Daschle has to run in a Red State.'  Anyway, as Frank notes, some people believe that the old 1930s class divisions in American life are being replaced by Red v. Blue divisions:

The essential cleavage in American life, the authors argue, is not between left and right or business class and working class; instead, it is a regional matter, a cultural divide between the states, polarized and unbridgeable.

I tend to agree with Frank that too many details are sacrificed to make the Red v. Blue story work:

What I mean is that this way of judging entire regions, religions and classes by polls and current electoral maps inevitably does violence to historical truth.

Here's a good example of such abuse using the election of 1896:

The substitution of region for class produces many distortions, but the worst is the treatment of the pitched electoral battle of 1896, in which Populists and Democrats united behind William Jennings Bryan while eastern industry backed William McKinley. Seen through the lenses of class conflict, that election was the precise opposite of today's red-blue contests, with the South and the Great Plains on fire for reform rather than conservatism. Viewed through the Retro-Metro prism, however, there is perfect continuity. In this view, Bryan was no progressive but just another fundie who spoke for ''America's major extraction industry: agriculture,'' while McKinley, by serving the needs of big business, stood squarely in the Metro tradition, the line that was to yield ''our present urban, suburban, eclectic, multiethnic, multireligious and multigendered society.''

This is why the Retro v. Metro book needed more historians and fewer number-crunchers.  Frank also reviews David Lebedoff's The Uncivil War, which various bloggers have been promoting of late.  It's also on my deak, awaiting a read.  Anyway, think about the larger meaning of  Daschle's defeat and ask yourself what it tells us about the Red v. Blue debate.  Comments welcome. 

The Economist!

I'm back from Thanksgiving break only to find that The Economist, the great British magazine, is mentioning the Dakota blog alliance in its current issue [UPDATE: here's the link (note the Rather picture)]:

Local bloggers also had an effect; in South Dakota, for instance, they repeatedly highlighted Tom Daschle's partisan record in Washington, DC, something that the Democratic Senate majority leader's friends in the local print media had never laboured to expose.

Daschle the "second Senate leader to be brought down by bloggers"

Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy this piece in World Magazine featuring one of the great patrons of the Dakota Blog Alliance, Hugh Hewitt.  It gives blogs a lot of credit for Daschle's demise:

Year of the blog
MEDIA: "Open-source journalism" changes the face of reporting and forces once-buried stories onto the national stage | by Gene Edward Veith & Lynn Vincent

It's Nov. 3, one day post-election, and talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt is ebullient with the GOP's victory. Broadcasting from a Southern California studio tucked into a mall behind an Asian noodle joint, the center-right conservative skips easily from topic to topic: the Bush victory, the Democrats' spectacular implosion, Osama bin Laden, the judicial nomination process. Simultaneously, Mr. Hewitt interviews guests, Googles, scans articles online, trades cues with his producer, chats with studio visitors, keeps one eye on CNN, and sips Diet Coke.

Through it all, he also blogs.

With 43,500 visitors per day, his blog, www.HughHewitt.com, has become for many a must-read stop in the new-media universe. An attorney, law professor, and evangelical Christian, Mr. Hewitt once worked as Richard Nixon's ghostwriter and served several posts in the Reagan administration. Now, he embodies the synergy between the key media developments of the '90s and the '00s: talk radio and blogging.

The radio show drives listeners to the blog. The blog raises subjects and provides information that lifts the level of talk-show discourse far above the mere trading of uninformed opinions.

Blogs are revolutionizing journalism, politics, and American culture, but many people still don't know what they are. The word blog is a contraction for "web log," which was originally just a listing, or "log," of websites that an internet surfer has visited. Some of the earliest websites back in the early '90s were merely lists and links to other sites that visitors or someone interested in a particular topic might find interesting. Soon, though, bloggers began accompanying the lists with their comments—and then the comments began to take center stage.

Though the Drudge Report, started by Matt Drudge in 1994, has become one of the most popular and influential websites on the internet, it still follows the most primitive format of the early blogs, consisting largely of links to other sources. But Mr. Drudge also breaks stories of his own, and when he began doing so in the late '90s—most spectacularly by reporting President Clinton's dalliance with a White House intern—stories previously hidden or ignored by mainstream media no longer were.

Today's blogs are typically websites operated by an individual or a group with frequent postings throughout the day. Though some blogs are essentially personal notebooks or diaries open for the world to see, the more influential blogs post commentary and opinion with clickable links to information about the topic being discussed. New entries pile up on top of older entries, so visitors to the site have to scroll down to read what has been posted earlier.

But perhaps the most important feature of blogs is that they are interactive. That is, readers can post comments, responding to what the blogger says with discussion and information of their own. It was not the Powerline bloggers but a reader who first showed in September why Dan Rather's documents about President Bush's National Guard service were probably bogus. Soon, with the blogs linked together as they are, thousands of amateur detectives were on the case. Experts on typewriters and computer fonts posted their comments, exact duplicates of the memos were generated on personal computers, and soon the case for forgery was made.

The CBS executive who sniffed that a blogger in his pajamas was not to be compared to a professional news organization with its fact-checking resources was missing the point. Bloggers do not work in isolation. What the technology makes possible is the marshaling of thousands of fact-checkers. Blogs have created a whole new atmosphere of information, which has become linked together, harder to hide, and available to everyone with a computer.

Mr. Hewitt calls this "open-source journalism," in which an elite journalism establishment no longer has the monopoly on news and analysis, readers can collaborate with writers, and a free market of ideas and information can emerge.

In his new book Blog, due out in January, Mr. Hewitt traces the short but ground-shaking history of the blogosphere. He identifies four key stories that marked the clout of blogs over the mainstream media.

In 2002, Sen. James Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) marked his retirement with a 100th birthday party. Among the dignitaries and colleagues scheduled to speak was Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. During his remarks, the Mississippi Republican said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."

The South Carolina senator had run for president as a "Dixiecrat," a Democratic party wing with the platform: "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, and our churches." The mainstream reporters in attendance seemed content to let the remark fade into history.

"Everybody, that is, except for ABC News reporter Ed O'Keefe," Mr. Hewitt writes in Blog. Mr. O'Keefe and an ABC colleague reported the story the following morning. But in news parlance, it had no "legs" and would've died if not for a then-anonymous, leftist blogger named Atrios, who wrote on his site, "I won't mention that the problems Lott is referring to are the Civil and Voting Rights Acts."

The fuse was lit. Liberal blogger Joshua Micah Marshall and libertarian Glenn Reynolds bit into the story, questioning whether Sen. Lott, whose remark seemed a misty longing for the good old days of segregation, was fit to serve as Senate majority leader. Within days, bloggers across the political spectrum began demanding Sen. Lott's resignation—and demanding to know why mainstream journalists were still silent. Bloggers pushed the story until regular reporters finally took up the cause and the Senate majority leader resigned. For the blogosphere, the Lott affair was a defining moment: Bloggers had forced mainstream media to cover a story.

It wouldn't be the last one. In 2003, bloggers' relentless scrutiny of The New York Times in the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal eventually forced the resignation of executive editor Howell Raines and his No. 2 man, Gerald Boyd. The blogosphere brought the most prestigious newspaper in America to its knees.

Then, in 2004, bloggers forced the mainstream media to take seriously the allegations of an upstart 527 group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Swifties' contention that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had lied about his war wounds and battle exploits boiled over into the mainstream media only after bloggers refused to let the story die. Then Fox News amplified the blogosphere buzz, eventually forcing broadcast networks and establishment print publications to examine the 527's claims. The collective media drubbing amounted to an assault on Mr. Kerry's credibility that may have tipped the election.

The most recent example of blog-driven news was "Rathergate." 60 Minutes 2 on Sept. 8 ran a story bashing President Bush's guard service, basing the piece largely on memos purportedly written in 1973 by his then-superior, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. But hours after the memos were posted on the internet, bloggers Buckhead, PrestoPundit, Powerline—and Hugh Hewitt—debunked them by calling in document experts and questioning the integrity of broadcast icon Dan Rather. CBS first stood by its story, but relentless blogger attacks forced the news veteran into a corner from which he would ultimately issue, on the air, an unapologetic apology.

What bloggers did with the Swift Boat Veterans and the exposure of the Rathergate forgeries arguably played a role in the reelection of President Bush. Liberal blogs helped launch the candidacy of the anti-war candidate Howard Dean—and raise money for him—which pulled John Kerry to the left, which, in turn, may have also helped reelect President Bush. On election night, blogs leaked the result of early exit polls that heralded a Kerry victory, leading to Democrats' euphoria and Republicans' depression until the actual vote count came in. Mr. Hewitt believes that left-wing bloggers were part of a deliberate disinformation campaign, what he calls "black blog ops," which signals the potential of blogs to be misused. But it was also conservative bloggers on election night who warned their readers not to take those early reports seriously.

Mr. Hewitt may well be the world's leading blog-evangelist, having inspired something in the neighborhood of 120 new blogs. (A website, www.hewittinspired.blogspot.com, catalogs them all.) Some are part of a growing sub-wave of evangelical blogs; "Hugh kept bugging me about starting a blog, saying the blogosphere needed evangelical voices," said Mark Roberts, senior pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church.

Mr. Roberts agreed, and learned that blogging at www.markdroberts.com provides a way to extend his ministry and "simply speak as Christians about what's going on in the world. Not on Christian 'issues,' per se, but whether it's a book, or a movie, or a social concern, through blogs we can contribute a perspective that might not otherwise be heard."

For example, after Mr. Roberts attended an advance screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and posted a review on his blog, he entered into a correspondence with some Jewish readers—something that probably would not have happened had his review appeared only in Christian periodicals. Blogging, Mr. Roberts said, helps him avoid insularity, which he sees as an occupational hazard for pastors: "It enables me to interact with a much broader cross-section of people in the world, for me as a pastor to have conversations with people about serious topics, people who are not folk in my own church."

Similar conversations are taking place across the evangelical segment of the blogosphere (including at worldmagblog.com, one of the most-read evangelical blogs), but they are far from monochromatic. Evangelical Outpost, a popular Bible-based blog, tackles politics and social issues from a conservative perspective, while Rob Asghar, an evangelical Democrat and former Muslim, is the blogger behind the more liberal Dimestore Guru. In Iraq, blogging soldiers gave an inside account of life in a war zone, while freedom-loving Iraqis, such as the three brothers behind Iraqthemodel.blogspot.com, write about their liberation in sharp contrast to doom-and-gloom mainstream reporting. Such bloggers are often professionals who conceal their real names, fearing reprisals from terrorists or Saddam loyalists. But their blogs are receiving up to 200,000 visitors per month, according to a United Press International report, and represent the first attempts at a free Iraqi press in modern times.

Not only nationally oriented blogs have an influence. In South Dakota, local blogs took on Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in his reelection bid. Their scrutiny of his record and their championing the cause of his opponent, Republican John Thune, made him the second Senate leader to be brought down by bloggers.

In Vermont, Timothy Cook, a military physician now in private practice, became fed up with the liberal newspapers in his state. Convinced that native Vermonters are more conservative than the state's current leadership, he started DefytheHerald.com, a website designed to counter the propaganda put out by the state's major newspaper. That blog now serves as a meeting point for state conservatives, and spinoffs from it deal with other liberal Vermont newspapers.

The blogosphere now offers soapbox space to everyone who cares about public opinion. Start-up is cheap and blogging technology is easy to master: "It is a marketplace of pure ideas," Mr. Hewitt says, "and not just a medium for the elite. It's no longer necessary to persuade anyone to be allowed to persuade anyone." —•

AL

Note this quote from an Associated Press story yesterday.  The AP story runs in today's Argus Leader, but without the aforementioned quote.  You have to love consistently.

Reid

BusinessWeek:

"The Democrats will be in a reactive mode for now," says Norman J. Ornstein, an expert on Congress at the American Enterprise Institute. "What they need is not a great public spokesman, but someone just like Reid who is tough without appearing abrasive and who knows how the Senate operates and can use leverage."

The low-key 64-year-old will take a quieter approach to leading the Democrats than did his smooth and telegenic predecessor, Tom Daschle, who lost his South Dakota seat on Nov. 2. Senate Republican leaders broke an unwritten rule about campaigning directly against an opposition leader and targeted Daschle for defeat, charging that he was an obstructionist liberal in a moderate's clothing.

AAN

From an article in today's Aberdeen American News:

Northern State University political science professor Jon Schaff said many Daschle supporters are emotionally devastated because of the bitter, close election loss.

"Depression and anger - there's no doubt Tom Daschle's supporters in Aberdeen and across the state are experiencing these things," Schaff said.

One thing that led to Daschle's defeat likely was the way he came across in his campaign commercials, the professor said.

"In some of his ads it sounded like South Dakota wouldn't be able to function without him," Schaff said. "It was like somehow the state would fall apart, and we owed him our votes. There was something patronizing about the way Daschle ran his campaign, like he was saying, 'You people need me in order to survive out there in the sticks of South Dakota.'"

Rathergate

Instapundit:

THE FINAL WORD ON RATHERGATE, I think, is found in this statement from Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) on Wolf Blitzer's CNN program: "The media certainly is not in our hands any longer."

Indeed.

Democracy

In this weekend of giving thanks, thank fate that you don't live in Ukraine.  Note this column in this morning's Washington Post entitled "The New Iron Curtain."  And give thanks for our recent Senate election, which suffered only a few glitches and for which 80% of people cast a vote.  On democracy, note this post from earlier this year.  And note this post about how democracy is enhanced by blogs.  And see this post about why there is concern about the Argus Leader distorting the democratic process.  And pray the impending elections in Taiwan and Iraq turn out well.

Brokaw

Apparently, Tom Brokaw thinks the homestead exemption deal seriously hurt Daschle.

Severance Pay

This just out from The Hill:

Daschle aides get parting gift; New resolution provides severance to displaced staffers By Geoff Earle
Aides to defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) won’t be getting a gold watch. But they will receive a severance package to keep them financially afloat as they look for new jobs, thanks to a resolution passed by the Senate just before it adjourned early Sunday morning. The package is far short of the “golden parachutes” that go along with top corporate jobs, but it could help ease some of the financial and emotional pain that Daschle’s staff has experienced after his stinging loss.
The resolution, titled “Displaced staff members of senators and Senate leaders,” modifies Senate rules to provide up to two months’ pay and benefits to leadership staff or personal-office aides when the senator they work for is defeated in the elections. Daschle was the only incumbent senator to be defeated this year. “It’s a decent thing to do to people who won’t have a job anymore,” one Senate Republican aide said. Under the resolution, which was worked out between senior Democratic and Republican leadership aides and passed with no fanfare by unanimous consent, aides must have worked for a senator or Senate leader for at least 183 days to get the benefit. They must work for a senator who ran for reelection and lost, so aides to senators who announced their retirement would not be eligible. The severance would begin after Jan. 3, when Daschle will no longer be a senator, and would stop as soon as eligible staffers got new jobs. The new Senate will be sworn in Jan. 4. (The Senate passed a resolution switching the swearing-in date for new senators to Tuesday, Jan. 4, allowing senators to begin the new session after a three-day weekend). Previous resolutions, in 1984 and 1993, provided the same severance to staff of members who die in office or resign during their term or to committee staff who lose their jobs because a senator loses his chairmanship or ranking member slot.

Ryne on Hitler/KKK "cartoon"

Ryne:

What a disgrace. The national Democratic party is a wreck, and it looks like the South Dakota wing is ready to follow them off the cliff.

The Daily Caucus website isn't the South Dakota Left's answer to the Dakota Alliance. They're South Dakota's answer to Daily Kos. Believe me when I say I don't mean that as a compliment.

Ben Hanten, the manager of the site, is a good guy.  I can't believe he'd allow someone to post this "cartoon."  So who did?

Q

Quentin is making a very good point about the Argus coverage of the new Hitler/KKK "cartoon." 

A New Low

On November 7th, Dave Kranz of the Argus Leader said this in his column:  "Web sites characterized [Daschle] as the devil."  Perhaps in Kranz's world, but I don't remember a single instance of blogs calling Daschle the devil.  In contrast to Kranz's mythological devil comparison, note this vile new comparison of John Thune to Hitler and a KKK member offered up by the South Dakota left which SDP has posted.  SDP comments:

First, it was Senator Tim Johnson who compared Republicans to the Taliban.  Then it was Argus Leader executive editor Randell Beck, known to frequent the local yuppie coffeehouse with Tim Johnson, who said "If Hitler were alive today, he'd have his own blog."  In response, one wag noted that "According to Godwin's Law, an Internet discussion-group dictum that long predates blogging, when one side in an argument invokes Hitler, it proves he's lost."  Well, today we're seeing abundant proof that the liberals in South Dakota have lost the argument.

SDP also notes how Kranz made a stink about a college student calling Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth a "witch."  Let's see if the Argus Leader and Kranz will cover this latest act of absurdity with the same vigor they report--and create--mean things said about Democrats.  It should also be noted that 79% of South Dakotans oppose gay, which is what the above mentioned "cartoon" refers to.  When someone compares a candidate who opposes gay marriage to Hitler and the KKK, what does that say about how that someone views 79% of South Dakota voters?

Carson on Dems

Brad Carson lost his bid for the Senate in Oklahoma earlier this month and just now I read his essay in The New Republic (11/22/04, p. 34) addressing the moral issues which keep hurting Democrats in Red States.  Some editors and writers have told me how much they admire Carson's willingness to embrace difficult truths.  Excerpt:

For the vast majority of Oklahomans--and, I would suspect, voters in other red states--these transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal health care or raising the minimum wage or preserving farm subsidies. Pace Thomas Frank, the voters aren't deluded or uneducated. They simply reject the notion that material concerns are more real than spiritual or cultural ones. The political left has always had a hard time understanding this, preferring to believe that the masses are enthralled by a "false consciousness" or Fox News or whatever today's excuse might be. But the truth is quite simple: Most voters in a state like Oklahoma--and I venture to say most other Southern and Midwestern states--reject the general direction of American culture and celebrate the political party that promises to reform or revise it.

Daschle's New Role

Daschle to be White House counsel, at least according to one version of events.

The End of Dan Rather

He's stepping down.  See this for Argus Leader reporter Dave Kranz's defense of Rather--30 years ago.

The Future of the Senate

From today's edition of The Hotline about the next round of Senate races:

Congress Daily's Wegner previews the GOP SEN seats up in '06: "An early look" at the 15 seats indicates that the Dems "are likely to be competitive in little more than one-third of them. And only two of these opportunities" -- PA and RI -- are in states that voted for John Kerry. "At this point, there is only one definitely open" GOP seat -- Sen. Maj. Leader Bill Frist's (R-TN).

Of course, we're lucky in our neighborhood--there will be big Senate races in Nebraska, Minnesota, and perhaps North Dakota next time.

Nofziger on Daschle Defeat

I interviewed the famous political guru Lyn Nofziger last year for an article I'm working on about the 1974 South Dakota Senate race.  Nofziger was a consultant in the race--very interesting story.  Anyway, I just noticed his column on the importance of Daschle's defeat this fall, which appeared in The New York Times a few weeks ago.  Excerpt:

In reality, the president can thank Republican gains in the Senate and House for giving credibility to his claims of a mandate. The defeat of the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, was, next to Mr. Bush's own win, the Republicans' most significant victory. For all his soft-spoken ways and claims of wanting to work with Mr. Bush, Senator Daschle was a consistent, effective and highly partisan obstructionist who blocked not only legislation but also presidential appointments, primarily those of conservative federal judges.

With Mr. Daschle gone and with the addition of four Republican senators giving the party a 10-vote margin in the Senate, Mr. Bush will probably no longer have to contend with Democratic filibusters preventing the Senate from voting on his judicial appointees.

This is especially significant because during the next four years many expect three or perhaps four Supreme Court vacancies. It is a stretch, however, to think that the Senate will view the election results as a mandate for Mr. Bush to appoint whomever he wants to the courts. For one thing, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee will be the liberal and unpredictable Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. And while some may think that Senator Daschle's loss will serve as a warning to Democrats hoping to defy the president, it seems clear that he lost not because of his record of opposition but because he lost touch with his constituents.

Roll Call on Daschle's Defeat: "Even Democrats acknowledge that the defeat of the influential 18-year incumbent was a stunning blow"

Here's an excerpt of the actual text of the Roll Call article today on the consequences of the Daschle defeat (summarized earlier today by The Hotline).  Even Daschle's media guru Karl Struble says that Democrats in Red States are "endangered species."  My article discussing Struble can be found here.  I told you (im May) that Struble had lost his magic.  I suppose he's the one who produced that absurd Daschle hunting ad.  Roll Call excerpt:

Senate Republicans believe that the defeat of Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) on Nov. 2 sends a chilling message to Democrats who must stand for re-election in 2006 in “red states.”

Republicans not only point to Daschle’s loss at the hands of former Rep. John Thune (R) but also their pickup of five open seats in the South. All six of those states were carried by President Bush.

“One of the themes no matter whether one was in Cajun Country in Louisiana or in Florida or in the Black Hills of South Dakota was that this obstruction has to stop,” said outgoing National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman George Allen (Va.). “There are consequences beyond the won-and-lost column in every election.”

The theory of heightened Democratic vulnerability will be tested in less than two years, as five Democratic Senators — Ben Nelson (Neb.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.) and Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) — stand for re-election in states that Bush carried on Nov. 2.

(The White House approached Ben Nelson about becoming Agriculture secretary recently, but he declined. If he had accepted, Republican Gov. Mike Johanns would have appointed a GOP Senator to fill out the term.)

Thune successfully turned the election into a referendum on Daschle’s role as leader of his party, which, he alleged, centered on blocking Bush’s agenda.

The lesson learned, Thune said, is that “if you are part of this pattern of obstruction and get yourself crosswise with the interests and values of your constituents, it is going to cost you politically.”

Even Democrats acknowledge that the defeat of the influential 18-year incumbent was a stunning blow and a cause for reflection.

But they add that Daschle’s position as leader of his party seeking re-election in a presidential year made for a unique set of circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated.

“You can overanalyze South Dakota, because in this case you had somebody who was a national leader,” said Democratic media consultant Karl Struble, who handled the television strategy for Daschle. For someone like Daschle, it is “easier to ascribe the national party agenda” to them.

Struble added, however, that “there is no doubt that being a Democrat in red states make you an endangered species.”

Reid and the New Senate

The Houston Chronicle is featuring a story entitled "Senate minority leader says bipartisanship should be aim."  Excerpt: "

Elevated to minority leader earlier this week, Reid succeeds South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, who lost his re-election bid Nov. 2. Senate Democrats head into the new Congress with fewer seats -- 44 -- than at any time since the Great Depression. ...  Reid said he told Bush in their meeting last week that he will work with him.

Actually, I think it's 1928, but you get the idea. 

Daschle's defeat "sends a chilling message"

From today's edition of The Hotline:

BATTLE FOR THE SENATE: Could GOP Target Red-State Dems Once More?

      Senate GOPers believe that the defeat of Min. Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) 11/2 "sends a chilling message" to Dems who must stand for re-election in '06 in "red states." The theory of heightened Dem vulnerability "will be tested in less than two years," as Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) stand for re-election in states that Pres. Bush carried. Dems "acknowledge that the defeat" of Daschle "was a stunning blow and a cause for reflection. But they add that Daschle's position as leader of his party seeking re-election in a presidential year made for a unique set of circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated."
      Daschle media consultant Karl Struble: "You can overanalyze South Dakota, because in this case you had somebody who was a national leader. ... (For someone like Daschle, it is) easier to ascribe the national party agenda" to them. Struble added, however, that "there is no doubt that being a Democrat in red states make you an endangered species." Dem pollster Fred Yang: "Democrats should all take pause [to consider] what happened to our candidates in the red states."
      To be sure, Sens. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) must run in states won by John Kerry (D). "The pivotal -- but unknown -- factor in each of these contests will be whether the party campaign committees can successfully convince top-tier candidates to challenge the incumbents." In '04, GOP gains "could have been far broader had they not failed to cajole first-rate recruits" into ND, NV, or AR. And in SD, "if the GOP had put up any candidate other than" ex-Rep. John Thune (R), "Daschle would likely have been re-elected easily."
      "However, finding a top-tier candidate to run against a long-serving and generally popular incumbent is never easy -- especially in such small-population states" as NE, ND, and NM. "In most small states, everyone in the political elite knows one another, and many ordinary citizens know members of the political elite. As a result, there is strong peer pressure against taking on a powerful figure, even if he or she belongs to a different party: If the challenger loses, he or she risks losing not just time and money but also friendships and working relationships."
      At this point, only Nelson "appears to have a top-tier opponent." Gov. Mike Johanns (R-NE) "has repeatedly expressed an interest in running and has been encouraged to do so" by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), "who has made no secret of his distaste for Nelson." The "strength of a Johanns candidacy, coupled with Bush's" 35-pt margin in NE, "makes for tough sledding for Nelson." Nelson spokesperson David DiMartino: "We are realistic that we have an uphill fight in a conservative state, but Ben Nelson's record reflects Nebraska values and we will be proud to defend it." On "traditional wedge issues, Nelson is among the most conservative in his Caucus. He is anti-abortion, pro-gun and voted" to end filibusters of judges and in support of a ban on same-sex marriage. DiMartino: "Senator Daschle's challenge was he was forced to defend the positions of every member of the Caucus." Struble: "Ben Nelson is no Tom Daschle. You can't mistake them on wedge issues or tax policy."
      Outside of NE, "it's less clear who's going to run against" the red-state Dems. Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) "appears to be the leading candidate" to take on Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), though LG Toni Jennings (R), '98 candidate/AG Charlie Crist (R), CFO Tom Gallagher (R) and ex-FL House Speaker Daniel Webster (R) "are also mentioned." Several names on that list will opt for the GOV race instead.
      GOP hopes in ND "appear entirely contingent" on Gov. John Hoeven (R-ND). Hoeven "has given no indication of an interest in challenging" Sen. Kent Conrad (D), "a situation that's reminiscent of the failed GOP attempts to recruit" ex-Gov. Ed Schafer (R-ND) to challenge Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) in '04.
      GOPers "seem even less likely to field serious challengers to Byrd and Bingaman, assuming they run for re-election." Byrd "is such a legend" in WV "and in the Senate that few would dare cross him. Bingaman doesn't have the stature of Byrd," but the NM GOP "is hobbled by a relatively weak bench, a reality that may give Bingaman a free pass" (Cillizza, Roll Call, 11/22).

Farewell

Here are some thoughts from David Frum which were on NRO today:

NOV. 22, 2004: DASCHLE TAKES HIS LEAVE

I’ve been looking for Tom Daschle’s farewell speech to the Senate on the web without success. If somebody has a URL, please send it in so I can link. Anyway, I heard it broadcast live on the radio, and it impressed me as a document that as well as anything explains what went wrong for Democrats this year.

Tom Daschle headed the majority party in the US Senate from the summer of 2001 until the 2002 elections. Under his leadership, the Senate voted “aye” for two major military actions, one in Afghanistan and then another in Iraq. If memory serves, no other Senate leader in American history has twice been called on to make the momentous decision for war or peace. Daschle spent hours in consultation with the president over war strategy; his own office was targeted by the still-mysterious anthrax terror attacks. Except for the last, his speech referred to none of these grand and historic events.

Instead, Daschle spoke only of how moved he was that Americans “came together” in the wake of the attacks. And indeed, those moments of national solidarity were moving. But precisely because they were so moving, they forced the question: Now what? Daschle’s speech suggests that he was never very interested in the answer to that question. And that in short form is his party’s problem: For all that Dems insist that they have overcome their dovish and isolationist history, it remains the case that the defense of the nation remains a subject about which they prefer not to speak.

Allen

Senator George Allen of Virginia discusses the recent GOP success in Senate races in today's Washington Times:

Democrats, meanwhile, picked up only two open seats nationwide and sustained a net loss of four — including their incumbent party leader, something that hasn't happened in more than 50 years.
    Mr. Allen said he has not spoken with Minority Leader Tom Daschle — who lost his South Dakota seat to former Rep. John Thune in a stunning upset — since the election. Ousting the highest elected Democratic official was like "winning three seats," he said, but added: "There's no reason to gloat."
    "I clearly disagree with his philosophy and the stands he's taken," Mr. Allen said. "Personally, you always feel for somebody who loses. They tried, they fought hard, spent a ton of money — that's for sure — but I wish him well in the private sector, and I'm glad we have John Thune."
    A clear demand Mr. Allen said he heard campaigning across the country the past two years is that the Senate should stop blocking Mr. Bush's judicial nominees. The ouster of Mr. Daschle, who he said was the "architect, the chief obstructionist," is proof positive that Americans want Mr. Bush's nominees granted a final vote, one way or the other.
    "He had the values of Capitol Hill, rather than the Black Hills," Mr. Allen said, referring to the mountainous region of southwest South Dakota.

Reid

Some on the left are not happy with Daschle's successor, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. 

Turnout

There's been quite a bit of talk about turnout in this election, but of course no reporter has dug in and given the public some details about what exactly happened, i.e. why the South Dakota GOP performed so well and the vaunted Daschle turnout machine sputtered.  On that front, note the long article today in The New York Times Magazine about the turnout war in Ohio and the efforts of Democrats and their Soros-funded 527s like Americans Coming Together (ACT).  The reporter, Matt Bai, wrote a similar article before the election about the Republican turnout effort in Ohio.  There are some similarities to South Dakota, including the GOP reliance on in-state volunteers in contrast to Daschle's importation of coasties.  Excerpt:

Earlier in the year, I had spent weeks on the other side of the lines in Ohio, writing an article for the magazine about the Republican plan to vastly increase turnout using an all-volunteer network, modeled on a multilevel marketing scheme like Amway, that would focus on the new and growing exurban counties around Ohio's major cities. Democrats, traditionally the masters of field organizing, had dismissed the Republican effort as an exercise in self-delusion, insisting that volunteers could never build a turnout model to compete with professional organizers. In ACT and its partners, Democrats told me, they were building the most efficient turnout machine in political history. I returned to Ohio in the final days of the campaign to see the power of this grass-roots behemoth in action. I did -- and I came to understand its limitations as well.

Later, the reporter notes some of the reasons the Democrats didn't do as well as they thought they would in Ohio:

I was beginning to understand that the rules of the game were changing, confounding even the experts who seemed to have this business of voter turnout all figured out. For decades, Democratic operatives had been virtually unchallenged by Republicans when it came to mobilizing voters, and during that time, they had come to rely on a certain set of underlying assumptions, all of them based on experience in urban areas. One was that the volume of activity at a polling place was a reliable measure of turnout; long lines meant higher turnout, and no lines meant disaster. Another was that the strength of a get-out-the-vote program could be gauged by the number of people canvassing city streets, the people holding signs in the rain, vans carrying voters to the polls.

But Ohio, like much of the country, was undergoing a demographic shift of historic proportions, and Republicans were learning to exploit their advantage in rapidly expanding rural areas that organizers like Lindenfeld, for all their technological innovation, just didn't understand. In shiny new town-house communities, canvassing could be done quietly by neighbors; you didn't need vans and pagers. Polling places could accommodate all the voters in a precinct without ever giving the appearance of being overrun. In the old days, these towns and counties had been nothing but little pockets of voters, and Republicans hadn't bothered to expend the energy to organize them. But now the exurban populations had reached critical mass (Delaware County alone had grown by almost one-third since the 2000 election), and Republicans were building their own kind of quiet but ruthlessly efficient turnout machine.

Here comes the scariest part for Democrats:

From the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and especially after the disputed election of 2000, Democrats operated on the premise that they were superior in numbers, if only because their supporters lived in such concentrated urban communities. If they could mobilize every Democratic vote in America's industrial centers -- and in its populist heartland as well -- then they would win on math alone. Not anymore. Republicans now have their own concentrated vote, and it will probably continue to swell. Turnout operations like ACT can be remarkably successful at corralling the votes that exist, but turnout alone is no longer enough to win a national election for Democrats. The next Democrat who wins will be the one who changes enough minds.

It's quite an interesting read.  You'd think the turnout battle in SD would prompt a reporter to dig into the story.  You know, because it was the biggest Senate race in the country and tens of millions of dollars were spent.  Finally, you might want to check out these thoughts of a Democratic GOTV person in South Dakota.

NYT

On p. 14 of the "Week in Review" section of today's New York Times there is a map setting forth certain cultural indicators of various parts of the country.  It notes that SD has the second highest per capita number of readers of Ladies Home Journal (behind North Dakota).  It also has the second lowest murder rate in the nation (behind New Hampshire). 

Filibuster II

Here's an article in today's NY Times about the filibuster in the Senate, one of Daschle's key political legacies.  Excerpt:

FILIBUSTER UNDER FIRE

Henry Clay Hated It. So Does Bill Frist.

By SCOTT SHANE

Published: November 21, 2004

American Movie Classics When Jimmy Stewart filibustered in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," audiences cheered. It's been downhill ever since. <> <> TIMES NEWS TRACKER   Topics Alerts United States Politics and Government Congress Legislatures and Parliaments History Track news that interests you.

ASHINGTON — "Half of official Washington is here to see democracy's finest show, the filibuster. The right to talk your head off! The American privilege of free speech in its most dramatic form!" - A reporter in the climactic scene of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939.

In the long, colorful history of the filibuster, an extra-constitutional accident of Senate history that has become an institution, perhaps no performance exceeded that of the populist Democratic senator, Huey P. Long, of Louisiana.

Hoping to stave off a bill that would have given his political enemies at home lucrative New Deal jobs, Mr. Long took the floor on June 12, 1935. He read the Constitution and the plays of Shakespeare. He offered up a recipe for fried oysters and a formula for Roquefort dressing. He asked his exhausted colleagues to suggest topics for his monologue. When they wouldn't oblige, he invited reporters in the press gallery to pass down suggestions.

Only at 4 a.m. did the urgent call of nature put an end to Mr. Long's 15-hour soliloquy. Yet this is not the Senate record. That dubious honor belongs to Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who held up the 1957 civil rights bill for a brain-numbing 24 hours and 18 minutes.

Filibuster I

This just in, from Scott Ott:

Daschle Filibuster Blocks His Departure from Senate

(2004-11-20) -- The departure from the U.S. Senate of former minority leader Tom Daschle, D-SD, was blocked for a short time Friday when the Senator, who lost his re-election bid to John Thune, refused to yield the floor.

"Sen. Daschle began to filibuster his own retirement," said one unnamed Senate aide. "It was a touching moment, recalling his legacy of blocking Bush-appointed judicial nominees."

Upon hearing of the filibuster, Republicans and Democrats returned to the largely empty chamber and quickly invoked cloture on a vote of 99-to-1.

As he left the Senate chamber for the last time, Mr. Daschle hailed his own accomplishment of bringing the two parties together for that final vote.

Daschle's Farewell

Sen.Tom Daschle, right, shakes hands with doorman German Vasquez as he leaves the Senate.

From the CNN report:

Daschle didn't address his defeat in his 20-minute farewell address, but he offered a litany of accomplishments made during his years on Congress on behalf of South Dakota and its citizens, as well as reminiscing fondly about his trademark annual car trips through each of the state's 66 counties.

He also told his colleagues that he was "proud of those moments when we found common ground."

Dave Kranz of the Argus Leader has this report.  The New York Times is the only paper I can find which is noting what Lautenberg said:

In the Senate, the Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who lost his re-election bid, delivered a poignant farewell speech that brought him a standing ovation.

"It's had its challenges, its triumphs, its disappointments," Mr. Daschle said of his 26-year career in Congress, which included a decade as the Democratic leader. "But everything was worth doing."

Mr. Daschle is the first Senate party leader in more than half a century to lose a re-election campaign. His emotional talk, in which he also urged his colleagues to find "common ground," was attended by nearly all of the Senate's Democrats, who gathered him in their arms and hugged him afterward.

But only a few Republicans showed up, and Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, who broke with Senate tradition to campaign against Mr. Daschle in his home state, South Dakota, did not appear until after Mr. Daschle finished speaking. The scant Republican showing provoked Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, to speak out. "I don't know why, why in the closing days, some element of comity, some element of grace, some element of respect for a human being, could not have gotten some of our friends out of their offices," Mr. Lautenberg said.

Quote of the Day

"We had...five drunks or six drunks when I came here. There's nobody drunk in the United States Senate. We don't have time to be drunk."
          --Ernest Hollings, retiring after 38 years in the U.S. Senate

More Factors From The Mailbag

I just received a very thorough analysis of the election from a South Dakota high school history teacher which was great.  Keep the thoughts coming.  Also, here's another factor I don't think anyone has mentioned before from yet another reader:

Another factor that I feel was significant in the Daschle defeat was the Hutterite vote.  I helped to register the people from our colony (most of whom had never voted before), and I know they voted for Bush/Thune/Diedrich.  I also heard that there were several other colonies who allowed their people to vote for the first time.

For the uninitiated, there are number of communal colonies of German-speaking (at least until recent years) Hutterite farmers in South Dakota.

Farewell

Here's an AP story on Daschle's farewell.  It sounds like it was quite nice.  On the other hand, I'm getting emails from people saying they saw it on C-Span and Senators Dayton (D-MN) and Lautenberg (D-NJ) were getting rather nasty.  Please email if you have a transcript.

National Journal: during election, "a 'siege mentality' took over" Argus Leader

Sorry for the slow posting, but I've been working on the book.  Anyway, apparently Senator Daschle gave/is giving is final goodbye on the Senate floor today, so watch for that.  Also, I hope you have had a chance to read through the 26 factors that helped determine the final outcome of the Senate race (I'm looking for more, so keep sending in your thoughts).  Number (16) relates to the Dakota blogs, which are featured in a lengthy story in today's National Journal (subscription only) entitled "Bloggers Targeted Daschle and the Press," which discusses how "an unprecedented assault" was "launched" on the Argus Leader.   Here are some excerpts:

South Dakota Republicans opened a new and potentially powerful front in the war over public opinion during their successful bid to oust Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in the November 2 election. Not only did they orchestrate a highly effective, Internet-based campaign against Daschle, but they also targeted the state's largest newspaper and primary news source, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

***

The effort, which could test the limits of federal campaign finance regulation of Internet activities, played a crucial role in shaping the news coverage of the race. Commenting on the bloggers, Argus Leader Assistant Managing Editor Patrick Lalley said, "I don't think there's any way to say they didn't" affect the paper's coverage of the election.

Well, that's an interesting and brave concession from Lalley.  The NJ doesn't review the blog criticism of Lalley, but oh well.  He deserves credit for making a difficult admission.  The first sentence, however, seems like some kind of veiled threat about the FEC shutting down political blogs, which is an absurd idea.  But that would be another wonderful coda to this race--Daschle and his team of eve-of-election-lawsuit-filing lawyers riding in not to prevent any GOP poll watchers from watching the polls on election day, but trying, this time, to prevent websites from criticizing the Argus Leader that has been so kind to Daschle over the years.  While the whole idea is laughable, it's an interesting glimpse into the totalitarian mind of someone--not sure who, exactly, because the article doesn't say--who thinks it's a good thing to try and shut down political websites.  Here's more:

South Dakota Republicans have long chafed at the Argus Leader's political coverage, complaining among themselves that the paper has too liberal a slant for an outlet covering politics in a heavily conservative state. Their anger was magnified by the fact that the newspaper is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in South Dakota's media room; virtually all of the state's other, smaller newspapers and television outlets essentially follow the paper's lead.

Almost every election cycle in South Dakota over the past two and a half decades has spawned its own media-bias complaints, including charges during the 1990 Senate race that led to a spate of stories, including items in the The New York Times and Roll Call, questioning the Argus Leader's objectivity.

Yeah, you'd think the Argus would do something to address this chronic criticism.  But Beck fiddles while a Gannett monopoly-market cash cow burns.  If all the people who say they have cancelled their subscriptions actually have then that can't make Beck's Gannett overlords happy.  Anyway, here comes--at long last--an important concession from Dave Kranz:

But then, this past spring, Van Beek unearthed a series of memos from the 1970s that, according to Van Beek and Gannon, showed that Kranz had consulted on press strategy with aides to former Rep. James Abourezk, D-S.D. In the memos, aides refer to Kranz as a "good Democrat" whom Abourezk's office should work with.

The publication of the memos, as well as growing attention to the Daschle-Thune race by national bloggers and conservative media outlets, prompted an angry response from Argus Leader Executive Editor Randell Beck. On a radio call-in show, Beck defended Kranz, called the memos "crap," and accused the bloggers of being part of an organized right-wing effort looking to damage the newspaper.

Kranz, who declined to talk during the race about the blogger attacks, acknowledged in an interview that he has known Daschle for many years. "I'm not going to sit here and say that some of the connects on me didn't have some truth to them," Kranz said of the blog postings. "But a lot of them didn't."

Kranz also said he was approached during the campaign by some state Republican officials who felt he was being attacked unfairly. He says he rejected an offer from these GOP officials to try to quiet down the bloggers. Although he refuted many of the accusations against him, Kranz said it would be inappropriate for a reporter to try to silence a critic. "That is what our job is all about -- protecting freedom of speech," Kranz said.

Um, well, Mr. Kranz, why, pray tell, DIDN'T YOU SAY SO??  If's there's "some truth" to the blog criticism, why wasn't that disclosed to all your readers??  "GOP officials," eh?  Count me as skeptical.  Let's just say that the emails roll into this site from GOP "officials" who love every bit of criticism of the Argus on the blog.  Kranz and the Argus have burned a lot of people over the years and sometimes I get the feeling that they all read the blog.  They want justice, after lo these many years.  The article also says that Kranz "refuted many of the accusations against him."  Oh really?  When was that exactly?  Let's hear the defense.  And let's hear a response to actual criticisms made and the documents uncovered.  Let's put this thing to rest.  Why were Democratic operatives and staffer Tom Daschle saying in Abourezk office memos in the 1970s that Kranz is a "good Democrat" and will do some digging and reporting to help The Cause?  Why would they say that, exactly?  And what about the other memos?  By the way, I thank my lucky stars that Kranz did not set out to "silence" me and fought for my "freedom of speech."  Whew!  While this whole maudlin and dramatic response will just keep on giving in the fresh material department, it does get better.  The NJ was forced to rely on an "Argus Leader source," which I'd bet the farm is executive editor Randell Beck:

"What it came down to was a disinformation campaign waged by the Republican Party in concert with Dick Wadhams," charged an Argus Leader source, who asked not to be identified. "The strategy seemed to be to use the Internet to disseminate the message and manipulate public perception under the guise of some sort of public groundswell, and then affirm the message in debates and other public pronouncements."

Argus Leader reporters said the pressure from the blogs increased until a "siege mentality" took over at the paper, according to one source. Complaints flooded the paper's office, and anti-Argus Leader pieces became a regular feature of the letters-to-the-editor section.

How about answering the specific criticism?  The blogs have asked for that all along.  But what do we get?  It was a "disinformation campaign."  Well, that's helpful.  What was WRONG in the criticism?  What was misinformed?  And why, when making such a sweeping charge, are you afraid to do so publicly?  What's with the demand for anonymity?  This, from a newspaper constantly preaching about "openness," "accountability," and the "public's need to know."  It sounds like a statement from someone who has said one too many foolish things publicly and not liked the result.  And it sounds like someone who refuses to admit it's possible for the Argus Leader to make any mistakes.  It sounds like someone who might just make up something about what the Argus had "covered" and then refuse to issue a correction.  It sounds like somone, like Randell Beck, who would say that criticism of the Argus was "crap" and driven by a "violent" internet "cabal" of "yahoos" and "jokers," who are full of "hatred" and "vitriol" and lacked "guts" because they hid "behind their computer screens" and wouldn't face him "man to man."  But hey, I'm just guessing.  By the way, Beck's line about people "hiding behind their computer screens" is all-of-sudden doubly amusing.   

The story ends by noting that the Argus felt shamed into finally writing a story about Daschle's homestead exemptions because of the bloggers and notes the "key role" of the bloggers. 

Then, when TalonNews ran stories on Sen. Daschle's decision to claim a special tax credit on his home in Washington, the Argus Leader decided it had to write its own story, too. Because the tax credit applies only to a primary residence, it fit perfectly with the "out-of-touch" theme that dominated bloggers' criticism of Daschle. Earlier Argus Leader stories had mentioned the issue [edit: they didn't mention the homestead exemptions certainly, so I'm sure what this sentence refers to--Roll Call and Talon and Bob Novak had reported it earlier, however]. Said an Argus Leader source, "I didn't think where he lived deserved its own headline, but I also don't think we ignored it." Still, the TalonNews piece "forced our hand. I can't deny that," the source said.

Although no one believes that the Argus Leader flap was the deciding factor in the race, the state's bloggers and media sources both said the campaign against the newspaper played a key role in the GOP's message-control effort to persuade voters to elect Thune over Daschle.

The piece also notes that some bloggers, including me, were Thune consultants.  Fair enough.  But that's not the point really.  The point is the complete unwillingness to answer the specific criticism, which the Argus still hasn't done.  It's worth noting that the editor's radio appearances soon stopped after the criticism and the Argus "blog" flopped in about a month.  The editors were supposed to answer reader comments and criticisms about political coverage but they soon decided that actually trying to come up with a response to legitimate criticism was a difficult task.  So they didn't respond at all.  The reporters at the Rapid City Journal, on the other, hand are happy to answer criticisms and offer commentary and the RCJ blog.  You know, "openness" and "transparency."  The Argus hunkered down, however.  And that speaks volumes about the legitimacy of the blogger criticism. 

And note this from SDP--the NJ text is first, followed by SDP's comments in italics:

As the election entered the homestretch, Thune was clearly making inroads with the help of his campaign's relentless attacks on Daschle's ties to official Washington. The blogs and conservative pundits took Daschle to task over his wife's lobbying activities in the House, and they accused the Argus Leader of ignoring the story -- despite the fact that the newspaper's Washington reporter, Mike Madden, had written a lengthy front-page piece months earlier on Linda Daschle, a lobbyist in Washington with the firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz. Still, the Argus Leader published a second story on Linda Daschle -- a story that, sources say, was a result of the bloggers' criticisms.  [The chronology here is wrong.  The blogs did not accuse the AL of ignoring all of Linda Daschle's lobbying activities after Madden's report in June of 2003.  The blogs did consistently criticize the AL for consistently burying a report that Linda Daschle had lobbied on behalf of Schering-Plough, while Kranz falsely implied that John Thune lobbied for pharmaceutical companies in one of his columns.  In a telling example of the AL's pro-Daschle bias, the AL published a Los Angeles Times report on relatives of lawmakers being lobbyists as a companion piece with Madden's report on Linda Daschle.  The AL's editors actually changed the text of the LAT story to make it less damaging for Daschle.  Furthermore, the AL needed no prompting to publish two front page stories about Thune being a lobbyist, and in the waning days of the campaign, Daschle relentlessly attacked Thune for "getting rich" from lobbying, and falsely implying that Thune lobbied for pharmaceutical companies.-ed] 

Senator Dole Hits Daschle on Legacy of Obstruction

From today's Washington Post:

"Led by Minority Leader Daschle, these recent years a number of important issues for America have been stymied -- certainly a comprehensive energy policy, asbestos litigation reform, medical liability reform, class-action reform, welfare reform, the nominations, confirmations of many important judicial positions," Dole said.

Asked whether her remarks were in keeping with the spirit of civility, she said: "I'm just stating the facts of where we've been in terms of a number of important issues that have been stalled."

Daschle's spokesman, Todd Webster, called the comments "shameful and classless" and said they mischaracterized Daschle's position on energy legislation, which he strongly supported. For much of the past year, the legislation was blocked by internal Republican disagreements over liability protections for makers of a widely used fuel additive.

Well, that's simply not true.  The Republicans DROPPED those MTBE requirements that Mr. Webster refers to and the Senate STILL blocked the energy/ethanol bill. See "The Ethanol Moment" for all the details. 

Johnson

Senator Tim Johnson is on the Senate floor right now talking about Senator Daschle's career.  UPDATE: President Bush just spoke at the dedication of the Clinton Library.  Now Bono is singing.  Ain't C-Span great!  UPDATE II:  Now he's singing one of the greatest songs in the history of rock-n-roll: "Bloody Sunday."  If you've never been to Derry, you need to go.

How Thune Won: 26 Factors

Previously, I listed 18 different factors that were important in the outcome of this Senate race.  I've re-listed them below with additional elaboration and more links and I've added 8 more factors to be considered: 

(1)  POPULISM:  We're still a populist state in many respects, i.e. we question cultural and economic elites and their lifestyles.  Daschle's mansion and Jaguar hurt him in this respect, as did the fact that he was the biggest recipient of Hollywood money this cycle.  Also, to the extent you subscribe to the "too big for his britches" theory, that is essentially a populist throw-the-bums-out sentiment.

(2)  DASCHLE's ADS:  Forget about the misleading nature of some (think of Daschle's COOL ad here, which was completely untrue) for a moment and just think about their quality.  They weren't great.  And that hunting ad was simply terrible.  Hunters, the target audience, thought Daschle looked ridiculous.  And it's amazing how LONG the Daschle campaign ran the ad.  The ad seemed to reinforce the "phony" charge (as the comments to the Argus/KELO Mason-Dixon poll indicated). 

(3)  THE POLITICS OF AVOIDANCE:  In any battle, it's nice to have allies.  And Thune could rely on Bush, talk radio, the internet, Guliani, Mrs. Dole, and others, or at least not have to avoid them.  But Daschle was basically alone.  He wasn't playing up his connections to Kerry, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and Daily Kos, four defining figures in the Democratic establishment this year.  He had to avoid them, which is hard to do as the titular head of the party.  Who Daschle did or didn't hug also fits in this category.  "Huggate I" and "Huggate II" involved Daschle's denial that he hugged Michael Moore and Daschle's ad of him hugging President Bush, his chief nemesis in recent years. 

(4)  CLOUT:  This was Daschle's only argument.  And it wasn't that compelling, especially when he's in the minority in a Republican town.  But let's just say Daschle was no Karl Mundt or Francis Case, who could point to two interstate highways, a massive dam system, and other big projects.  When Daschle ran an ad saying he got some money for the Brandon library, it almost made him seem smaller or less consequential.  And if Daschle was so powerful, where's the ethanol bill, the neutrino lab, etc...  Also, remember that Daschle ended up in being criticized by the Mitchell Daily Republic last spring when one of his ads made it seem that Mitchel Vo-Tech was promoting him when he actually voted against a final bill that helped them.  Also, Daschle's claim that he was instrumental in the state's distance education program also blew up on him when 50-some state legislators said the state had a lot more to do with the program than Daschle ever did. 

(5)  DEBATES:  Thune did extremely well, it seemed to me.  And Daschle had to play defense.  And he looked weak always trying to find a reason why he couldn't debate.  But more than anything, it confirmed that Thune was a very strong candidate with a command of all the issues.  Note Rapid City Journal reporter Kevin Woster's comments on the RCJ blog:

Thune really emerged as a tough candidate in the debates. He did better than I expected, starting with the first debate under the big tent at Mitchell. And he more than held his own with Daschle facing questions by Tim Russert.

I think you could argue that Thune really became senatorial in those debates. They shaped him for voters in ways the millions spent in advertising couldn’t.

(6) ABORTION: Despite what Denise Ross might say about the Daschle campaign's failure to "manage" this issue better for the candidate, there's simply no avoiding the NARAL and Emily's List work that Daschle did, especially when the "In His Own Words" ad featured Daschle going on about choice being "sacred ground."  Remember that last winter the legislature voted to ban abortion in the state.  As other emailers have noted, Daschle's refusal to answer a reporter's question about whether he was pro-choice then elevated the issue beyond the confines of his position on abortion to one about his duplicity on the issue, confirming the line of criticism about him saying one thing in DC and another in SD.

(7)  DASCHLE'S BASE:  Some of the independent polls showed Thune winning as much as 18% of the Democratic vote (while it was probably less than 18%, Daschle simply couldn't afford to lose Democratic votes).  Some of this erosion probably has to do with cultural issues, one imagines.  But one also wonders if some of Daschle's traditional voters stayed home because of his hugging-Bush ads.  Let's face it, one thing many base Democrats don't like is President Bush. 

(8) DASCHLE REPUBLICANS:  Johnson won 20% of Republicans in 2002, but Daschle only won 18% (according to the only exit poll that I've seen on the race).  If you do the math, that means the Republicans voting for the Democrat declined from 40,000 down to 36,000.  Also, after the accident Daschle either wouldn't or couldn't rely much on his relationship with Governor Janklow.

(9) HISTORY:  More generally, one could say that history caught up with Daschle.  The abortion issue is the perfect example here--he told ministers in 1986 it was "murder" but now he's on the NARAL/Emily's List team.  If one looks back at 1986, Daschle was pro-life, anti-gun control, anti-income tax increase, and pro-balanced budget amendment.  He changed on all these issues in 18 years.  His old history came back to haunt him.  The chickens came home. 

(10)  EAST RIVER RURAL COUNTIES:  If you look at the numbers East River, Thune won some counties he didn't in 2002 and cut his losses in a large number of small rural counties.  In my home county of Lake, Thune's vote went up from 41% to 44%.  In neighboring Moody, his vote went from 38% to 41%.  And on down the line.  He also lost Minnehaha County by 1,000 votes less than he did in 2002.  He actually won Codington and McCook, which he lost in 2002.  All the reasons listed above could account for the better showing in these counties.  I visited with an editor in McCook recently who he thought the "It's time," "Daschle is out of touch," and moral issues helped Thune in that county. 

(11) THE CORN CROP:  My relatives and friends who farm in Lake and McCook counties say they will probably have their best corn crop ever this year.  My research into McGovern's first win in 1956 and Daschle's first Senate run in 1986 indicate that Corn Matters, i.e. when the farm economy is shaky it helps Democrats. 

(12) FUNDAMENTALS:  Daschle said on NPR a couple of years ago that he was a "dedicated liberal" or something like that (something he never said when he first ran for Congress) but he said in his book that most South Dakotans are conservative.  Well, I think he was right on both counts.  Those two warring facts hurt him. 

(13)  LAWSUIT:  The filing of Daschle v. Thune on the eve of the election based on the weak testimony of one Deaniac about such matters as aggressive "eye-rolling" did not impress many South Dakotans.  Could it have been decisive to 500 or 1,000 fence-sitters?  Perhaps.  It was all over talk radio the next day. 

(14)  GUNS:  This is related to Daschle's ridiculous hunting ad, but deserves additional emphasis.  Daschle got an "F" from the NRA while his fellow Democrat Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth had their endorsement.  That contrast hurt, especially when the NRA reminded voters in the final weeks with ads about the "F."  They also noted how, in the past, Daschle said he opposed all gun control.  So this factor relates to Daschle's liberal votes in recent years, the "gone Washington" argument, the "say anything necessary" to win sentiment, and, once again, the chickens. 

(15)  HERSETH:  As noted above, she didn't help Daschle.  In addition to guns, she supported the flag burning amendment and the gay marriage amendment, both of which Daschle opposed, creating a contrast that didn't help Daschle (Senator Johnson also supported the flag amendment and opposed some gun control measures that Daschle voted for).  There was also a poll last summer showing that 25% of voters were also less likely to vote for Daschle because the SD delegation was all Democratic. 

(15)  INDIAN VOTE:  While Daschle got 1,000 more votes in Shannon County, home to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, than Johnson did in 2002, Thune more than doubled his vote from 2002, from 248 to 564.  His 6 trips to Pine Ridge helped, as his vote went from 8% in 2002 to 13% in 2004.  Thune's vote in Todd County, home of Rosebud Indian Reservation, went from 19% in 2002 to 21% in 2004.  While Daschle won more raw votes than 2002, Thune showed some respectable gains percentage-wise.  Noting the extra votes Thune won, the AP said "If Thune had received those 628 extra votes two years ago, he already would be a senator. Johnson defeated him by 524 votes statewide."  There was another story from the AP about Daschle's efforts on election day in Pine Ridge, where he was hoping for 60% turnout with the help of radio broadcasts from Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and Jesse Jackson, what one observer called a "Democratic takeover" of the airwaves.  Actual turnout was 57%.  That Daschle did not call on Kennedy, Clinton, and Jackson until election day highlights the Politics of Avoidance, i.e. Daschle didn't trumpet their support until it was too late for the press to make the connection.

A commentator on the Rapid City Journal blog also noted the following about Thune and the Indian vote:

Add this to the list: the “jump shot factor.” Indians have historically supported Thune at a greater margin than other Republicans running for office in Indian country. In large part, that’s because they’ve seen him. He’s not an Indian, doesn’t pretend to be an Indian, but was born and bred in that shortgrass country that had him shooting jump shots in every Indian gym in the State. And well.

That counts for something. Republicans all too visibly shudder sometimes around Indians, as Diedrich so often did. A fish out of water. Not Thune. The “jump shot factor” peeled enough Indian country votes, maybe a difference of a typical Republican (10 per cent), up to twenty-two, twenty-three percent in places that’ve seen him play. That’s the “jump shot factor,” I think. You connect with Indians, they’ll vote for you. More often than not, Thune’s jump shot connected and he became a star. Thune’s kind of connection counts for something in Indian Country, maybe a little more than in some other places. In any event, his shortgrass connections served him well in Indian Country, if only to the tune of peeling back the percentage normally enjoyed by Democrats.

I tend to agree with this.  Thune had a very warm welcome at the basketball game he hosted on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation last spring.  And he spent lots of time in Indian Country, including 6 visits to Pine Ridge.  When was the last time the GOP had a campaign office in Pine Ridge Village?

(16)  BLOGS:  There have been lots of emails about the impact of blogs on the race.  A University of South Dakota political science professor said after the election the blog impact was "huge."  And the blogfather, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, also singled out the Dakota Blog Alliance in a post-election column.  Former KELO-Land anchor Steve Hemmingsen also thought blogs had "a lot of clout" in the Senate race.  There will be a National Journal story tomorrow discussing this factor too.  We'll have to analyze this more in coming days. 

(17) WADHAMS:  The steady leadership of Thune's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, was also critical.  He has received enormous praise for his work.

(18) GIAGO:  Denise Ross of the Rapid City Journal noted the Giago factor in one of her post-election pieces:

When Daschle met with Indian newspaper publisher and would-be Senate candidate Tim Giago in April, the Daschle campaign let Giago make all the public statements about what transpired during that meeting. By the time the two met with tribal and congressional leaders in a closed-door session Sept. 25, buzz that crossed racial lines enveloped the state. People remembered that Giago had intimated big promises from Daschle, and they didn't like being shut out of the Sept. 25 gathering. By then, the buzz drowned out Daschle's assertions that he had not promised Giago anything.

This is one of the stories, by the way, that the Argus Leader systematically ignored, but it did get some attention West River.

(19)  WAR:  I should have mentioned this before, but issues of war and peace also intruded on this Senate race in a way that's uncommon for SD election contests.  In my research on past federal election battles, it is usually a secondary issue at best.  The central focus in this race was Daschle's comments on the eve of war, which said he stood by in late 2003.  During this race, however, he backpeddled.  The GOP Senatorial committee also ran ads featuring Daschle's comments along with similarly bitter comments by Kennedy and Kerry, reminding voters of his comments and his association with the anti-war, or at least critical-of-war, left.  That Zogby poll in late October showed that 60% of South Dakotans supported the war.

(20)  GOTV:  There has been a good discussion on the Rapid City Journal blog about what some see as the holes in the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort but, more importantly, highlighting the successes of GOP GOTV.  They got the Pennington County vote out.  It was 80% this fall, whereas it was 65% in 2002.  Also, they registered 3,000 more voters for this fall than did the Democrats.  How effective GOP GOTV was this fall has not received nearly enough attention.  The GOP GOTV also relied almost exclusively on South Dakotans, whereas the Daschle camp relied heavily on out-of-staters, prompting recollections of the Deaniac "perfect storm" during the Iowa caucuses, which didn't work out very well.  That a Deaniac testified during Daschle's eve-of-election lawsuit hearing also underscores this fact.

(21)  OBSTRUCTION:  This factor re-inforced other factors, but deserves some attention on its own.  Thune used Daschle's activities in the Senate to frame the race.  With it he could list the litany of bills that Daschle had opposed which had support in SD.  That mid-summer Wall Street Journal editorial entitled "Daschle's Dead Zone," which was re-run in some SD papers and was used extensively in the Thune newspaper ads, also crystallized this issue.  Senator Frist's visit also highlighted this factor.  One also wonders if certain Perot-ista strains of thought about making our institutions function and getting-the-job-done didn't hurt Daschle because of his obstructionist tactics.  Many South Dakotans are pragmatists.

(22)  BUSH:  Again, this relates to several factors, especially (21).  But Bush won by 22 points.  Daschle had never had to run a competitive race in a Presidential year and it hurt him.  What made it doubly damaging was his position as chief-opponent of President Bush since 2000. 

(23)  DASCHLE's RUN FOR PRESIDENT:  Again, this is related to other factors, but it re-inforced his image as someone who had gone national.  And it's Daschle's preparation to run for President which surely prompted the NARAL boot-licking.  It also prompted several liberal publications to highlight the lobbying of his wife.  Articles from Slate, the Washington Monthly, and LA Weekly were much more stinging than similar articles on conservative magazines would have been.  I also recall polls at the time indicating that South Dakotans were not supportive of Daschle running for President. 

(24)  HUBRIS:  Pride goeth before the fall, as they say.  And the Daschle campaign was certainly confident.  Trying to fix the homestead exemption by getting Mrs. Daschle to sign it (after some scrutiny from Talon News and Roll Call) and not telling people about that little transition probably fits in this category, as does the absence of full disclosure on the Giago meeting, which then triggered differing assessments of the "deal" from the Daschle campaign and Giago himself.  Some reporters have told me the Daschle campaign burned up a lot of credibility with these and other incidents. 

(25)  VICTIMHOOD:  The Daschle campaign's constant screeching about "negative attacks" really wore thin.  The critical moment may have late August and early September when the national Chamber of Commerce became the first group to really lay a glove on Daschle on the issue of tort reform.  The Chamber is about as mainstream and establishment as one can get in many South Dakota towns and there was tons of evidence proving Daschle opposed tort reform, so the Daschle campaign's denunciation of the Chamber's "extremist agenda" seemed extreme itself.  When the Daschle campaign then ran ads denouncing Thune's "lies" when it wasn't even his ad and which featured a trial lawyer Daschle had himself touted, it backfired.  They overplayed their hand.  And it looked ridiculous to many. 

(26)  MORAL ISSUES:  In one of the more absurd moments of the campaign, Daschle started running a TV ad touting his opposition to abortion and gay marriage.  When the claims were analyzed, it was clear that Daschle was playing fast and loose with the facts on such claims.  More importantly, it gave those issues, which liabilities for Daschle, tremendous visibility in the final weeks of the campaign.  Of the 25% of people in exit poll who said "moral issues" were their most important issue, 82% went for Thune. 

Well, those are the main factors as I, with a great deal of help from readers, see them.  I'm still interested in your thoughts on these and other factors which were important.  Again, many thanks to the readers of DVT. 

The “jump shot factor"

Here's another person's thoughts--via the Rapid City Journal blog--on a potentially interesting factor in the race:

Add this to the list: the “jump shot factor.” Indians have historically supported Thune at a greater margin than other Republicans running for office in Indian country. In large part, that’s because they’ve seen him. He’s not an Indian, doesn’t pretend to be an Indian, but was born and bred in that shortgrass country that had him shooting jump shots in every Indian gym in the State. And well.

That counts for something. Republicans all too visibly shudder sometimes around Indians, as Diedrich so often did. A fish out of water. Not Thune. The “jump shot factor” peeled enough Indian country votes, maybe a difference of a typical Republican (10 per cent), up to twenty-two, twenty-three percent in places that’ve seen him play. That’s the “jump shot factor,” I think. You connect with Indians, they’ll vote for you. More often than not, Thune’s jump shot connected and he became a star. Thune’s kind of connection counts for something in Indian Country, maybe a little more than in some other places. In any event, his shortgrass connections served him well in Indian Country, if only to the tune of peeling back the percentage normally enjoyed by Democrats.

See this on the basketball game that Thune hosted and played in on Cheyenne River Indian Reservation -- I took lots of pictures.

PBS

We're lucky that SDP is following all of Thune's stops on the national media circuit.  I haven't done the best job on that front because I'm working on the final Why Thune Won article.  Speaking of Why Thune Won, here's what he said on The News Hour last night:

GWEN IFILL: You ran for the other Senate seat against another Democrat two years ago, yet you lost by 542--524 votes, very narrow. What was different this time?

SEN.-ELECT JOHN THUNE: You know, I think this time around, obviously there was a presidential race which I think helped with turnout. We did a much better job of getting the vote out this time than we did two years ago. And I think in this race there was real definition on the issues, a lot of contrast, two years ago maybe not so much so.

And I think that between Sen. Daschle and myself, we had a lot of difference on the issues and I've always maintained that elections are about differences. And I think this year in South Dakota we gave people a very clear choice. And I also think that for better or worse, by virtue of his position as a national Democrat Party leader, Sen. Daschle had to block things on the agenda that people in South Dakota were very supportive of.

So I think the whole issue of obstructionism was a key central theme throughout the course of our campaign, and I think in a lot of races around the country, that was also a theme that a lot of Senate candidates sounded.

Am I Reading This Right??

According to the Huron Daily Plainsman, the SD Farmers Union wants an anti-COOL Secretary of Agriculture!?  See this:

South Dakota Farmers Union President Dennis Wiese said Rep. Charlie Stenholm, D-Texas, would be a good replacement as secretary of agriculture. “This is an opportunity for the Bush administration to demonstrate that they want to move forward in a bipartisan fashion,” he said. As agriculture is typically a nonpartisan issue in Congress, Stenholm’s nomination could provide a good opportunity because he is the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Wiese said. Stenholm is a member of the Blue Dog Democrats and has sided with the Bush administration on other issues.
“It makes a good political fit,” Wiese said.

But Thune disagrees, saying when he served with Stenholm on the House Agriculture Committee the Texas representative was often on the wrong side of the issues important to South Dakota producers. Stenholm has also been a major opponent of country-of-origin labeling in the House, Thune said.