Tonight marked the third debate held between John Thune and Senator Daschle. The debate tonight was reminiscent of the Dakotafest debate in August, where Daschle was thrown a severe beating. Thune has tremendous command of the facts, and the facts are against Daschle in this race, which is why he's trying to condition people not to listen to the facts by labeling them a "negative attack" or blinding them with his vaunted "clout."
Thune began with a very important quote from Senator Grassley of Iowa published last week saying that Daschle's leadership position in the Senate has become a "curse instead of a blessing" and that "Daschle puts politics and party ambitions in first place. And by doing that, he is sacrificing the interests of farmers and rural America."
Whenever Thune scored points tonight on such issues as the energy bill, judicial nominations, gay marriage, and flag burning, Daschle would respond by simply saying that Thune "is not telling the truth, and he knows it" and not expanding beyond that. Each time Daschle said Thune was not telling the truth, Thune simply responded by saying "don't listen to what he says, look at what he does." To my mind this response completely deflated Daschle every time. I think Thune's response encourages people to look at what Daschle does, and of course if people turn to the internet they'll no doubt land on the blogs. If they do, they'll know Daschle is the one with the truth deficit, and more importantly, discover that Daschle knows he's not telling the truth on issue after issue, from abortion to ethanol.
AP reporter Dennis Gale gets credit for asking the most interesting question of the night. Gale asked Daschle directly whether there was a promise to return Wind Cave National Park in the Black Hills was given in exchange for independent candidate Tim Giago to get out of the race last spring. Daschle denied there was such an exchange.
The best exchange of the night was when Thune pointed out that when he left Congress in 2002, country of origin labeling (COOL) was the law of the land, and that under Daschle's watch, COOL was delayed. A visibly irritated Daschle began complaining about the Republicans being in control of all branches of government and that it was unfair to blame him for the delay of COOL. "Well, you're the leader, you've got all this clout, you can stop judicial nominations. Why can't you stop the delay of country of origin labeling?" Thune replied. It was spectacular.
Daschle is clinging to drought relief and the misleading perception of his "clout" (he's using his clout to advance the interests of the Democratic Party, not South Dakota) and hoping his maneuvers, reversals, and double-crosses will continue to be ignored by the Argus Leader. In sum, Daschle was thrown another beating tonight.
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