Daschle v. Thune

"The end was nearly Shakespearean"

I'm still working on my final analysis of the Senate race and I'm glad to be receiving your insightful comments.  Here are some excerpts of yet another letter explaining one reader's thoughts on the outcome of the race (I'm blessed with very incisive and imaginative readers):

"O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." --Sir Walter Scott

As Tom Daschle pursued the post of Majority Leader and his short-lived bid for the Democratic nomination to the Presidency, he followed the road map of many Democrats that went before him, David Bonior, Richard Gephardt, Al Gore, and yes, Bill Clinton.  All of these folks were once pro-life, pro-family and pro-Second Amendment.  However, when the demand of advancing their careers in the Democratic Party came, they sold out their faith and the voters who first elected them.  Instrumental in this transformation is muddying their positions to cover their tracks.  Daschle did so in a startling fashion.

***

The interview that Tom Daschle had with Kevin Woster of the Rapid City Journal proved to be the beginning of the end.  When pressed by Woster on the abortion issue, and the obvious inconsistencies with his record, Daschle refused to say whether he considered himself pro-choice (something he exclaimed in the NARAL fundraising memo), and questioned the appropriateness of the question.  Daschle was indignant, Daschle was arrogant, and it pointed to the fact that he knew that the abortion issue was his Achilles heel.

An argument has been made by Rapid City Journal reporter Denise Ross that Daschle's staff poorly served him on the abortion issue.  Countering her belief, Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, essentially said he was well-served, because they knew he had "a problem" on the abortion issue, and because of that, went up on television 16 months before the election.  Counter to what both believe, neither staff, nor hundreds of thousands of dollars in pro-life television ads aired by Daschle, could extract him out of the tight and sticky pro-abortion web he had woven over the last 26 years in Washington, D.C.

***

The end was nearly Shakespearean.  With the desperate "King Tom" bleeding heavily in their tracking polls, he called in a "chit" with a long-time judge friend whose confirmation to the federal bench he had shepherded through.  Daschle and his minions were hoping desperately for a "friendly" ruling that would block poll watchers that were there to avert voter fraud.  The judge should have recused himself, but leveled a judgment that while not good, was sufficient for victory.  It was priceless to have the live blog report from DaschlevThune.com capturing Daschle's two top campaign chiefs Steve Hildebrand and Pfeiffer flailing around for their cell phones, lashing out at people, desperately spinning their friends in the press, honking their horn and squealing their tires, knowing that "King Tom" was doomed.

***

My last thoughts are on the blogosphere.  Having never been familiar with blogs and their influence on campaigns and elections until this cycle, I must say I deeply appreciate them, and believe they are here to stay as a growing and influential force.  Despite the shrill cries of the main stream media (MSM), blogs are indeed journalism.  They hearken back to the pamphleteers of the American Revolution.  Blogs play a critical role in informing the electorate because so much of the MSM have become partisan tools for the Democratic National Committee and the entrenched incumbents they support.  Cutting my teeth in Macomb County, Michigan, I saw first-hand how the Macomb Daily (the largest daily newspaper in the county) would provide only favorable coverage to Senator Carl Levin, his brother Congressman Sander Levin, and Congressman David Bonior.  The paper completely ignored any critical stories about these liberals, even if they were newsworthy.  This is exactly what the Argus Leader did for Daschle through the cozy relationship the Senator had with Daschle’s college chum David Kranz.

Despite the heavy "political cover" the liberal Argus Leader provided Tom Daschle, and the desperate machinations by Daschle and his staff, the three-term Senator could not be rescued from the web he had woven.

Barone

Michael Barone is always worth reading.  I was also told a number of times during the campaign that he is a DVT reader!  Read everything he writes, but make sure you note this excerpt from his latest column:

Memo to future Democratic nominees: You can no longer rely on Old Media to hush up stories that hurt your cause. Your friends in Old Media don't have a monopoly any more.

Daschle, I think, learned this the hard way. 

More Analysis

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.

RCJ

Sam Hurst, a filmmaker/rancher from the Hills, has a column in today's Rapid City Journal.  There's much to disagree with, but it's interesting and imaginative, which we can't say of much of our political commentary.  Excerpt:

Tom Daschle went to Washington ... and changed. It was his undoing. There he was, three weeks before the election, in a brilliantly conceived Thune commercial, promising an audience of feminists that he would defend "a woman's right to choose." And then, ouch ... "I am a D.C. resident." To top it off, he was dressed in a tuxedo. What's a poor rancher in shredded Carhartt coveralls to think?

The first time I saw the commercial, I knew the election was over. The Thune campaign ran it a hundred times, but once was enough. It was a dagger in the heart.

Another:

I would have liked a campaign in which citizens could look squarely at a senator who has given his life to the state and ask, "Why have you changed?" "What have you seen out there that made you change?" "What can we learn about the larger world from your experiences?"

Instead of having that conversation, we were forced to listen to his frail protestations that he had not changed at all...

Yes, for example on abortion.  Daschle used to call it "murder" but in recent years did work for NARAL and Emily's List but couldn't say he was "pro-choice" when asked by a reporter.  That was one of the most absurd and Orwellian moments of the campaign. 

Meeting

ABC News' Ann Compton reports Senator Daschle was not included in the Congressional leadership meeting with President Bush this morning. Senator Reid was in attendance. The White House says this happened with Daschle's full consent.

RC

From this morning's Roll Call story entitled "John Thune: A Star Is Born":

Thune is regularly touted as a hero among his Republican colleagues for “knocking off the Democrats’ chief architect of obstruction and filibustering,” in the words of National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman George Allen (Va.).

One high-level Republican strategist added that Thune’s “courage to run against an extremely able and effective leader” has earned him “a lifetime of gratitude from the faithful.”

Thune acknowledges, however, that not everyone in the Senate has greeted him with open arms.

“I think it’s hard for some of these people and I think it is going to take a little bit of time,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

On Sunday night, Thune spoke with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), a close confidant of Daschle’s. The South Dakotan described the new party head as “very gracious.”

Thune said he has also spent a considerable amount of time over the past few days with Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor (D) as well as with fellow Sens.-elect Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.).

DK

There's a long string of comments on Daschle and Harry Reid over at Daily Kos if you're interested. 

WT

Washington Times:

Congratulations are in order for the nine new senators and 37 representatives who comprise the class of 2004 in the House and Senate. Each will have to prove him or herself as Republican-controlled Washington moves forward on the Bush administration's agenda in January.
    At the top of our list are Senators-elect John Thune, Mel Martinez and David Vitter, each of whom delivered advances in their own way for the GOP and for the conservative agenda.
    Mr. Thune, who handed Republicans Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's defeat in a hotly contested and closely watched race, showed what happens to a senator — even a powerful one — who acts against the wishes of his constituents. By Election Day the race had turned into a referendum on Mr. Daschle's record of political obstructionism against President Bush and his administration. Mr. Thune's views — pro-life, pro-tax cut and supportive of a federal marriage amendment — comport more readily with those of his constituents, and with Mr. Bush's.

Rationalizing Defeat

George Will's new column offers some insight into the Democratic rationalization for losing elections this fall.  This analysis also applies to the SD Senate race, where several local commentators have said that South Dakota voters are somehow psychologically pre-disposed to distrust success and also suffer from an inferiority complex.  They won't/can't admit that Daschle lost because he had moved so far to the left in recent years.  Here's some Will:

A small but significant, because articulate, sliver of the Democratic Party seems to relish interpreting the party's defeat as validation. This preening faction reasons as follows: the re-election of George W. Bush proves that 51 percent of the electorate are homophobic, gun-obsessed, economically suicidal, antiscience, theocratic dunces. Therefore to be rejected by them is to have one's intellectual and moral superiority affirmed.

This insult directed at the electorate must appall most Democrats, who would prefer to be validated by victories. But disdain for the judgment of average Americans now colors various aspects of American life.

Daschle "had for too long pulled the wool over South Dakotans' eyes"

See this article about how Daschle's defeat could change the workings of the Senate and trigger a change in the rule governing judicial nominations.  Excerpt:

Given that they probably can do it, the next question is: Will they? Here, what appears to be an unduly rosy view is offered by Melanie Kirkpatrick in Monday's Wall Street Journal. Stressing Senator Tom Daschle's recent defeat in South Dakota, Kirkpatrick contends that the GOP caucus will probably never have to "walk the walk" on the rule-change threat. Daschle's obstructionism, she argues, was a key element in what became a razor-thin victory for challenger John Thune. Thus, she infers that there may be no need to eliminate the filibuster by rule because other obstructionist Democrats will now be cowed into abandoning the tactic when, as anticipated, Supreme Court seats soon start coming open. Don't bet on it.

What made the South Dakota election important was Daschle — his personal power in the Senate. The state itself has never been a bellwether, such that its voters' dispositions can reasonably be said to reflect broad national trends. Even if they could, moreover, Daschle came very close to winning, and his loss was much less about any single issue than about the overall impression that he had for too long pulled the wool over South Dakotans' eyes — pretending at home to be a bridge-builder with a conservative streak, while actually operating in Washington as a fierce partisan of the Democratic Left.