IOUX FALLS, S.D., March 29 — The miles of snow-dusted farms and ranches of the Great Plains seem an unlikely epicenter for the struggle to control the Senate.Posted on 04/02/2002 10:49:55 AM PST by Chairman_December_19th_Society
IOUX FALLS, S.D., March 29 — The miles of snow-dusted farms and ranches of the Great Plains seem an unlikely epicenter for the struggle to control the Senate.
Stranger still is that majority power in Washington may well end up turning on such intense local concerns as whether meatpackers can own livestock and whether South Dakota values political pork.
But that is what happens when the Senate face-off this year between the Democratic incumbent, Tim Johnson, and his Republican challenger, Representative John Thune, could turn out to be the most pivotal race in the 2002 elections.
"This is regarded rightly or not as possibly the most contested Senate campaign in America," Mr. Johnson, 55, acknowledged this week to an audience of mostly elderly farmers in tiny Milbank. "It may well be."
This race could determine whether the Democrats keep their tenuous hold on Senate power, whether the home state Senator Tom Daschle remains majority leader and whether President Bush's agenda advances. No public polling has been done recently in the race, and people in both campaigns say it will be close.
Many voters here are uncomfortable with the notion that so much is riding on the contest. They say wistfully that they genuinely like both candidates and wish they did not have to choose between them.
"People would rather have it be a local race, but it just isn't," said Michael Donnelly, 35, a Thune supporter and sales manager who attended a packed Good Friday prayer breakfast just after dawn.
Mr. Thune, 41, was nearby at the door energetically calling out greetings to passers-by.
In its way, the South Dakota face-off feels like a tale of two races.
The one that is being played out here beside grain silos, at prayer breakfasts and on Indian reservations often revolves around water projects and federal grants and which candidate did more for South Dakota in drafting farm legislation. One hot question is who is fighting harder to prevent meatpackers from owning livestock, a concern of smaller ranchers and farmers who say that meatpackers who keep their own herds can control prices.
The other race is a proxy battle between Mr. Daschle and President Bush, which has the national parties and their ideological allies pouring money, advertising and operatives into the state.
Mr. Bush, who won South Dakota by 22 points in 2000, helped persuade Mr. Thune to run for the Senate instead of for governor. Mr. Johnson is Mr. Daschle's protégé, and if he loses, the race could strip Mr. Daschle of the Democrats' one-seat Senate majority, depending on the outcome of other contests.
So Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, has been here raising money for Mr. Thune, and several administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, have come to South Dakota. Mr. Bush is expected later this month. Former operatives from the Al Gore campaign have signed up to help Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Daschle sometimes campaigns at his side.
The national party committees have already run an exchange of political commercials, as if it were October. By some predictions, $14 million could be spent in the race, making it perhaps the most expensive in the nation per capita, because South Dakota has about 750,000 residents.
"This is a race that's going to be a magnet for money across the country," said Larry Makinson, who monitors campaign spending for the Center for Responsive Politics.
Out-of-state interests have already been all over South Dakota. For months conservative groups have run advertisements, some to pressure Mr. Johnson on issues, most attacking Mr. Daschle.
"Our ads are based at helping Bush pass his agenda by throwing Tom Daschle off balance," said Stephen Moore, whose Club for Growth has run advertisements criticizing Mr. Daschle for blocking the president's economic program and has a new set in the works.
"But they do have a little bit of a ricochet effect," Mr. Moore added, "because Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson are joined at the hip. So any time you damage Daschle politically, you have this collateral damage done to Tim Johnson."
Mr. Daschle is appearing as a draw at Mr. Johnson's fund-raisers.
One lobbyist and donor who would not allow his name to be used said, "I think everybody recognizes that this is Tom Daschle's junior senator."
At the end of 2001, the Center for Responsive Politics reported, 77 percent of individuals' contributions to Mr. Johnson's campaign larger than $200, totaling $1.1 million, were from out-of-state donors. Mr. Johnson's aides say he raises many smaller donations in South Dakota.
In contrast, 22 percent of Mr. Thune's contributions of more than $200 from individuals, totaling $132,700, came from out of state. He did not officially enter the race until October, however, and he was recently raising money in California. Both men also had contributions from political action committees.
Yet for all the out-of-state interest, this race has a very local feel. True, Mr. Thune is striking national Republican themes, putting a heavy emphasis on cutting taxes and a strong defense, but Mr. Johnson, in perhaps a textbook example of how Democrats hope to survive in conservative states, is trying to turn the race into a referendum on who can deliver the most for South Dakota. Thanks to Mr. Daschle, he snagged a coveted seat last year on the powerful Appropriations Committee.
So at stop after stop Mr. Johnson highlights grants that he says he brought home, like nearly $1 million to help Milbank keep its hospital.
"It has been a long, long time since South Dakota's had a member of the Appropriations Committee," he said before touring a university laboratory. "I've had that honor only the past year. But when you look at what we've been able to accomplish in one year, it's self-serving to say, but I think that maybe we want to try to sustain that for a while further."
Occasionally, he openly says that his fate could also affect Mr. Daschle, who is immensely popular.
As Mr. Johnson said in Milbank, his race "could very well determine whether the majority leader is from South Dakota or Mississippi," a reference to the home state of Senator Trent Lott, who led the Senate before Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the Republicans and gave the Democrats control.
Mr. Johnson said in an interview that Mr. Daschle was bound to be a subtext in the contest.
"People are proud that the majority leader comes from South Dakota," he said. "They are very much aware of his clout as well."
Mr. Thune, who as South Dakota's lone statewide member of Congress has won overwhelmingly in recent years, is working to portray the Democratic incumbent as out of step with the values of the voters, more registered as Republican than as Democrats. "I think I reflect them better," he says.
His campaign commercials emphasize cutting taxes and his support for a strong military, including a missile defense system and the B-2 bomber. They say Mr. Thune represents "South Dakota values," suggesting that Mr. Johnson does not.
At times Mr. Thune tries to rise above the debate over who has secured more for South Dakota. When Mr. Johnson held a news conference to say that the Senate version of the farm bill was more beneficial to South Dakota than the House one, Mr. Thune told reporters that the final bill was still being negotiated and that it was "not a time for playing politics."
But in his own advertisements, he has joined the fray, taking credit for helping secure money for a water pipeline and for highways, and for helping transform an abandoned gold mine into a physics laboratory.
Mr. Thune steps gingerly around the issue of Mr. Daschle, saying in an interview, "I think most people understand that whether they are in the majority or minority, Tom Daschle is going to be the leader of the Democrats."
He argued that South Dakota would therefore be better off with Mr. Daschle and a Republican senator with access to President Bush.
Many voters are torn.
"I don't relish going to the voting booth," said Dennis Davis, who as executive director of South Dakota Rural Water has worked with both lawmakers. "I don't want to see either one of them gone."
We are moving into the final stages of the parties re-aligning. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over the Democratic party it was mostly a conservative party. It still was in the 40's. The Strom Thurman that opposed the liberal Harry Truman was as conservative as a Democrat as he later is as a Republican. The Ronald Reagan who was raised a Democrat was a conservative Democrat long before he became a liberal Repubulican.
The Republican party was also split into liberal and conservative wings in the last century. The Rockefellers and other New England Republicans were leftist to the core. Jeffords was the last living example of the liberal Republican. There are still a number of conservative democrat politicians ans areas. They are our bigest opportunity.
The South has certainly changed parties. The Solid Conservative Democratic South of 1932 is the Solid Conservative Republican South of 2002. New England was once the solid baileywick of liberal Republicans. It is now the bastian of liberal Democrats. The final area and the one still in transistion is the upper midwest. The Dakotas, and even Wisconsin, and Minnisota are near a change over. Iowa is also on the brink. We are not that many years from the switch in Michigan.
By 2008 or at the latest 2012 the final hunks of the midwest will have transistioned to Republican control.
There one area that will not transistion is Chicago. Unless the population in Southern Ill. grows rapidly, Illinois will remain a Democratic state.
The problem for the Democrats is the left and right coasts are just not quite big enough. They get them close to victory but not close enough to control the house, senate or the presidency.
If the Republicans can take the upper midwest, they will control the national agenda for 30 years. But what passes for conservative in that area is not nearly as conservative as the south.
To win Rowe and Bush are both aware that they must bend to the less conservative population in order to have the power govern and continue to move to the right. The important task is to move the nation and voters to a majority Republican position. Like all contests for the hearts and minds of voters, first you have to get them... then you move them in your direction.
The Ronald Reagan who was raised a Democrat was a conservative Democrat long before he became a conservative Repubulican.
I believe that this will work against Johnson, as people here are getting tired of Daschle vomiting his liberal nonesense and making the state look bad.
Look for a close race, but Thune should pull it out. (I hope)!
This is a lie. Daschle is not immensely popular in South Dakota and may have his own battle for re-election in 2004. Ironically, though, if Johnson goes down, Daschle's re-election prospects probably increase.
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