There's an article in today's Argus Leader (apparently not online) about Daschle's stop in Renner, South Dakota yesterday. Daschle won't take public questions during his campaign stops, as DVT has noted, but in Renner he met with 10 business owners to talk about health care costs and the Argus reporter Randy Hascall was there. Toward the end of the article, Hascall notes this:
Ron Hefty of Hefty Seed Co. in Baltic said he favors tort reform. He also said one factor leading to high health care costs is that doctors are greedy. Daschle said a big issue is that doctors have to pay "way too much" for insurance.
Doh! These are the closed-door meeting comments that Daschle doesn't want quoted. Daschle has collected more than a quarter of a million dollars from trial lawyers, who oppose tort reform, since the early 1990s. And Daschle, as Senate Democratic leader, killed medical malpractice tort reform last summer. Right after killing tort reform, Daschle went to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) convention in San Francisco and had another fundraiser. Here's Daschle defending the trial lawyers against "attacks":
So when Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle showed up in San Francisco last month for the opening session of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America annual meeting, he found a very receptive audience."The more successful you are, the more fevered and well-funded the attacks become," Mr. Daschle said between bursts of applause.
Around the room above the heads of attorneys who shouted war-whoops of encouragement, sconces threw a golden glow against the blond wood and walls the color of rice paper.
"We may be outmuscled. We may be outgunned. But we enter this contest as many of you do when you enter the courtroom - with little more than right on our side," he said.
So Daschle does and says one thing in Washington and San Francisco and says another in Renner, South Dakota. This is why he's skittish about taking public questions. For another example of Daschle making pro-Republican comments in South Dakota only to have it blow up on him nationally and alienate his national base of Democratic supporters, see this about Daschle's Iraq comments when in Pierre, South Dakota several weeks ago.
UPDATE: SDP has even more about Daschle having it one way in South Dakota on tort reform and another on the coasts--San Francisco and DC.
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