I just listened to a 1978 public television debate between Daschle and Leo Thorsness. This was Daschle's first campaign, of course, and as we've noted before, he made a big deal out of the balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, saying he's "absolutely convinced" it would balance the budget. Daschle also ran on this in his 1986 Senate run and ran ads on it in 1992. When the BBA was ONE vote from passage in the Senate in 1990s, Daschle voted no because President Clinton wanted it killed. This tells us something about the consistency of both Daschle and the Argus Leader. When former Republican Senator Larry Pressler was running for re-election, the Argus Leader went back and reviewed his initial campaign promises and compared them to his subsequent record. Note this:
In 1990, the Argus Leader ran a series of long pieces arguing that Senator Larry Pressler was a bad Senator. The series relied on interviews of dozens of hill staffers, Senators, and journalists and used Spy Magazine as a source. They criticized his frequent press releases and reported that “critics” maintained that he “overtrumpets his accomplishments” and “flips around on issues.” Such maneuvers, the Argus reported “critics” saying, “masks a philosophical void, a man who often votes only after he has moistened a forefinger to gauge the prevailing political wind.” They even cited Tom Daschle for evidence! The Argus even ran an article about Pressler entitled “Early pledges fall by the wayside” arguing that Pressler’s stances when first running as a “reform” Republican in 1974 had been abandoned. The entire article was designed to make Pressler look like a hypocrite. Anyway, the substance of the charges against Pressler are neither here nor there--the point is that the Argus is actually capable of scrutinizing a US Senator and his record. If they went looking for Daschle flip flops they could fill a dozen Sunday papers.
The Argus Leader hasn't done a similar review of Daschle's record and that's a double-standard. Daschle's record has largely vanished down the memory hole. If you want some background, here's something I did. It's not that hard. The Argus should have done the same thing to Daschle that they did to Pressler. More from the SD audio/video archives later.
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