Daschle Primary Challenge

See this article entitled "Daschle Losing Native American Support," which is in part about Daschle's primary challenger. Excerpt:

The toughest campaign of Sen. Tom Daschle's (D-SD) 25-year career keeps getting tougher. The Senate Minority Leader is not only running neck and neck with former Republican Congressman John Thune, Daschle is facing a primary challenge.

Tim Giago, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe will compete for the
Democratic nomination for Senate in South Dakota's June 1 primary.
Giago, the editor/publisher of the "Lakota Journal" said, "The people of the
Indian reservations of South Dakota are not ... the top priority of either
Daschle or Johnson."

He pointed out, "The unemployment rate on the larger reservations ... is
much, much higher than the national average.

"On the Pine Ridge Reservation alone, the place of my birth, unemployment
runs as high as 60 percent," Giago noted. "This is unconscionable."
He added, "Pine Ridge, Shannon County, was proclaimed in 1980 and 1990 by
the U.S. Census Bureau, as the single poorest county in the United States of
America."

"Our two state senators, Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson, have done little or
nothing to bring economic development or jobs to these very depressed
areas," he stated.

Giago continued, "One has to wonder why this is so when we supposedly have
two senators working so hard to improve our lives."

Giago dismissed the legendary "Daschle clout" when he said, "Although there
are many homeless people on Pine Ridge [and the other reservations] neither
Daschle or Johnson have had the influence to bring badly needed housing to
this severely depressed region."

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