DVT notes, via an Overlawyered post headlined "A Lot of Trial Lawyers Supporting Tom Daschle," an August 15 article in the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger headlined "Daschle luncheon was quiet gathering." Excerpt:
Embattled Senate Minority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota was in Mississippi on Aug. 4 for a luncheon fund-raiser hosted by Democratic Party luminaries that included the state's best known trial lawyers....Trial lawyers represent Daschle's largest group of individual contributors at $1.5 million and his second largest overall sector of givers at $1.7 million during the current cycle.
The Daschle affair was under the political radar — as with many state Democratic fund-raising events. Not even the local daily newspaper in Oxford received advance notice of the event and there was zero news coverage of the event.
One can only imagine why Daschle's Mississippi supporters would feel the need to keep his visit to the state a secret.
Senator Daschle has a habit of going to extraordinary lengths to keep the trial lawyer fund-raisers he attends as secret as possible. This past December, Daschle attended a fundraiser hosted by a trial lawyer in Jacksonville, Florida which was kept so secret that even the city's top elected Democrat, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, didn't know about it until AFTER Daschle had left with his cash. Here's the report from the December 15, 2003 Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, headlined "Daschle ducks (in) city" (scroll about halfway down):
U.S. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle slipped into Jacksonville on Thursday for a private fund-raiser, then visited a Jacksonville Bar holiday party before popping in at the North Florida Building and Central Trades Council holiday oyster roast.Attorney Wayne Hogan hosted a fund-raiser at the University Club for Daschle, a South Dakotan running next year. Daschle later spoke for eight to 10 minutes at the union event at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall, talking about Democrats regaining seats and the majority in the Senate, said Eddie Dedmon, council president.
But what surprised some Democrats is the visit was hush-hush, and U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown -- the city's top elected Democrat -- and aides didn't know about it until Friday. Party leaders and Hogan, who led the fund raiser, did nothing to publicly promote the visit as the party seeks to rev up for the 2004 elections.
"I am quite certain, had she known he was in town, she would have attended," said Brown's chief of staff, Ronnie Simmons. "Daschle is a national figure who would galvanize Democrats in North Florida."
Hogan said the fund-raiser was planned in advance, but the other events were spur of the moment. The Bar party was downstairs from the fund-raiser, and the union party was on the way to the airport. Local Chairman Clyde Collins and donor Steve Pajcic said they learned about it that day.
"It wasn't my show. He came for a private visit," Collins said. "We hope to have him back."
Dedmon said he got wind of the visit about 4 p.m., several hours before Daschle spoke to a crowd of 300.
"It was really an unexpected visit," he said.
Well, remember Daschle's campaign motto: "Only the paranoid survive."
I posted this story on my old blog at the time.
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