Here's a new analysis of the Senate race by Jeff Gannon entitled "Daschle Betrayed By Staff In Homestead Tax Debacle." Excerpt:
Although several factors contributed to the defeat of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), one of the most serious wounds the three-term incumbent suffered was self-inflicted. In claiming a property tax break limited to residents of the District of Columbia, the Senator drew attention to the very thing he had long worked to conceal: He was more a creature of Washington, DC than Aberdeen, SD.
In April 2003, Daschle bought a French-style mansion along Washington’s ritzy Foxhall Road. In August, the anti-tax group Club For Growth produced a television ad that ran for two weeks in South Dakota lampooning him for his “very, very, very nice house” and portraying him as out of touch with the folks back home.
At the same time, Talon News conducted a search of property tax records and reported that the Daschle property was receiving the Homestead deduction. Roll Call picked up on the story and elicited explanations from aides to both Daschle and DC Mayor Anthony Williams that the deduction was proper because the senator’s wife, Linda, a high-profile lobbyist was a resident of the city. They dismissed the Talon News article as a “baseless, partisan attack.”
The issue remained dormant until September 2004, when Talon News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the Daschles’ Homestead tax exemption application. Several weeks later, it was revealed that the original application and affidavit was signed by Tom Daschle on April 30, 2003 specifically declaring Washington, DC as his “primary place of residence.”
When Talon News questioned the senator’s eligibility to vote and hold elective office from South Dakota, a Daschle staffer produced a document that bore Linda Daschle’s signature. It was dated two days after Talon’s August 2003 report.
Yes, this was clearly not handled well. Read the whole thing.
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