"Gosh, it's no fun being minority leader."
Posted on 08/24/2003 7:29:33 AM PDT by Liz
The Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate had just finished scrubbing dead insects from the windshield of his rented Ford Taurus when he returned to the highways of South Dakota to make another stop on an annual summertime journey to protect his political future.
There is, perhaps, not a Democrat anywhere in America who is more hunted than Sen. Tom Daschle.
The White House, the Republican Party and a collection of conservative groups are working tenaciously behind the scenes and in public to end Daschle's 25-year run as a Democratic icon in one of the most Republican states in the nation.
That's one reason the senator drove to Elk Point, and to other places across the state this month, hoping to counter the television ads, the telephone calls and the series of mailings designed to convince voters it's high time to dump Daschle.
The depth of his Catholic faith has been questioned. Two days before the Iraq war, a group called the Daschle Accountability Project sent a letter throughout the state not so gently comparing him to French President Jacques Chirac.
And then there are the death threats.
In March, a few hours before Daschle arrived in Spearfish, a man was arrested after coldly declaring over a pay phone: ''We're going to kill Sen. Daschle today.'' Two years ago, Daschle's office was among those in Washington targeted with deadly anthrax spores.
''I try not to think about it. I'm very fatalistic, but I don't believe you can live your life in fear,'' Daschle said. ''I don't consider myself immune from criticism or hyperbolic rhetoric. That's probably just part of politics today.''
In South Dakota, recent political races have indeed become bare-knuckle affairs.
Few elections were nastier than one that ended here last fall when Daschle's protege, Sen. Tim Johnson, beat Republican rival John Thune by 524 votes in a contest in which more than $6 million was spent. Nationally, it was a rare bright spot for Democrats. Locally, the race still is heavily disputed and allegations of vote-buying remain prevalent.
All of that, not to mention Daschle's lightning-rod post as the leader of his party in the Senate, sets the stage for an even more contentious race. His is one of at least four seats Republicans believe they stand a chance of winning in the 2004 congressional election season, a period that even some Democrats fear may be bleak.
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a conservative Washington group that is weighing in on the South Dakota race, puts it this way:
''There are two Tom Daschles: the Tom Daschle with a very liberal voting record who has become part of the Washington establishment and the Tom Daschle that masquerades as a prairie state populist, pumping gas for people during his August recess.''
For the next 15 months, Moore added, ''Daschle is target No. 1.''
Who will run against Daschle is unknown. But the South Dakota political landscape became unexpectedly more complicated during this month's congressional break, when legislators traditionally leave Washington to spend time in their home districts.
The state's only House member, Republican Bill Janklow, had not ruled out challenging Daschle. But now he may face criminal charges for his role in a fatal traffic accident Aug. 16. And Thune, a former congressman who narrowly lost the Senate seat last year, has not said whether he will challenge Daschle, fill Janklow's seat if it becomes open or sit out the 2004 election season entirely.
But the opening barrage of negative attacks on Daschle has been under way since May.
The Club for Growth, which seeks to elect candidates who support President Ronald Reagan's hallmark of limited government and lower taxes, first ran an advertisement attacking Daschle's position on taxes. This month the criticism is far more personal and features Daschle's new home in Washington.
''It's a long way from Aberdeen to Foxhall Road,'' the ad says, showing pictures of the senator's new home. ''This is Tom Daschle's new $2 million house on Washington's ritzy Foxhall Road. It's a great place to entertain Hollywood liberals, politicians and lobbyists.''
The Daschle campaign asked local television stations to consider not airing the commercial, but the senator himself said he wasn't overly concerned about the juxtaposition between his native Aberdeen and Washington, where he has spent considerable time since first being elected to the House in 1978.
''It's not lost on a lot of people that those who are criticizing me don't even live in South Dakota,'' Daschle said. ''They are out-of-staters with deep pockets and they want to tell South Dakotans how to vote and how to think. I don't think South Dakotans buy that.''
Tommy boy, you don't live there either. That's the whole point of the ad. Carl Lenin doesn't live in Michigan. He rents a Downtown Detroit apartment which he likely subleases.
At least my congressman still lives in Brighton.
Here's the last I have on it:
Catholic Church asks Tom Daschle to stop calling himself a Catholic
On Catholic Politicians and Faith
Vatican Urges Catholic Politicians to Vote Along Church Lines
THE BISHOP AND THE SENATOR [author links to FR thread regarding Daschle in her online column]
Blood On Their Hands: Exposing Pro-abortion Catholic Politicians
Prelate says politicians who back abortion shouldn't go to Communion
"Gosh, it's no fun being minority leader."
My advice to Tommy is not to think too much. That's how he'll really screw it up.
A damn pity. Yes, it will be great to pick off an important prairie dog. But I want more. Yes....lads...I want us to plunge our harpoons into the great white himself! Arrrghhh...to render that pale mound of Senatorial blubber into oil and haul him back in kegs to Hyannisport with flags flying and bugles bugling. . . that would be God's work indeed.
Gosh, I'm all broken up about it (sniffle).
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