Ah yes, the view is quite nice over here at SDP. Now to that question I'd like your thoughts on.
Some Senate race commentators closely adhered to a psychological theory of the election, claiming that an "inferiority complex" explained the result. Daschle supporter Sam Hurst said that when politicians “lose touch with the soil,” South Dakotans vote them out, which “fits our insecurities.”[1] The editor of the Argus Leader only half-jokingly cited the “lutefisk factor,” noting that “back here in South Dakota, the idea that our senior senator drove a Jaguar and lived in a $1.9 million house in Washington– the in-your-face message of relentless ad campaign in the final weeks before the election – took root.” Daschle had embraced “a lifestyle that appeared to be flamboyant and, in the end, un-Norwegian.” He cited the comments of the Mobridge Tribune editor that “We’ve got this inferiority complex in South Dakota. We think that when somebody gets too big for their britches, we have to knock them down.”[2] Chuck Raasch, a former South Dakota reporter then with Gannett News Service in Washington, found in the “Daschle and McGovern defeats the double-edged complex of inferiority and superiority” in the South Dakota, which “produces a culture that rewards the conflicting traits of modesty, industry and success against the odds, while punishing inattention, self-importance and distance. Call it the ‘Big Britches Syndrome.’”[3] Dave Kranz also concluded that “voters said [Daschle] was getting too big for his britches.”[4] Doug Grow, a former South Dakotan who went to work for the Minneapolis newspaper, said that “Daschle got too big for his britches.” From the Twin Cities, Grow sneered: “Modesty is the state’s No. 1 value. Mediocrity is all South Dakotans feel they deserve. … Real South Dakotans don’t join country clubs. They buy their suits at Penney’s and sit down to dinners of roast beef and mashed potatoes.”[5] Such commentaries, it seems to me, do not adequately address the inherent conflict between Daschle’s increasingly liberal record and the conservative tendencies of his state. Moreover, what they see as an “inferiority complex” seems to be good old-fashioned Dakota populism, a questioning of a man’s commitments to his state when he had been gone so long, rubbed shoulders with too many movie stars, and seemingly enriched himself with the benefits of power. Such commentaries also miss the enormous changes in Daschle's voting record since he was first elected to office, which caused people to question what he actually believed in and eroded his credibility. Such pop-psych Freudianisms as "inferiority complexes," one could argue, are simply devices for avoiding cold hard truths. But hey, what do you think? Comments welcome.
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