The Northern Valley Beacon, purportedly representative of the Brown County Democrats in Aberdeen, SD, offers a rare glimpse of outrage at Rep. Stephanie Herseth "undercutting" Sen. Daschle's positions during the 2004 campaign. The blog also quotes a Daschle campaign "leader" who said that ordinary South Dakotans "are not nice people" and questioned why anyone would want to live among them. Could it be Dan Pfeiffer (quoted during the campaign as saying John Thune is not a nice guy from Murdo) who said that? Anyway, here's an excerpt from a particularly rich post dated Saturday, November 13, 2004:
People who were active in the Daschle campaign knew that the Senator's hired campaign staff were furious with the way Stephanie Herseth took positions on gay marriage, gun control, and the kind of support she would pledge to President Bush. As David Kranz said at the [Dollar]-A-Month Club, her position left Tom Daschle and the Democrats who support him to walk the plank. She undercut his position in trying to define her own. If there were to be a primary in South Dakota today for the House seat, the Daschle Democrats would vote for someone else. Many Democrats would vote against Herseth's position on the issues for the same reason they voted against the position of the Republican candidate. The campaign staff for Sen. Daschle is particularly bitter, and as they return to their home states and, particularly, to Washington, D.C., they indicate that Rep. Herseth has greatly reduced the amount of support and cooperation she can expect from her fellow Democrats in Congress. ... In the minds of many Democrats, Herseth played to the anti-Daschle ads. Two years is probably not enough time for people to forget her stances in relation to what was one of the most expensive and bitter campaigns to be conducted at the senatorial level against her fellow party member. The 2006 election may be a test of the South Dakota Democratic Party's ability to cohere around candidates and issues.
Then there's the following passage from a post dated November 12, 2004:
Aberdeen is the site of much post-election analysis today. The Farmers Union is holding a convention, and the Brown County Democrats are meeting over lunch. Argus Leader writer David Kranz is speaking at both meetings, sharing information and insights into why Tom Daschle lost and what is taking place in state politics.
There is habit in South Dakota to chide anyone who tries to find out who is accountable for failures. People warn not get caught in the blame-placing game. But very often when things go badly, someone is to blame. Problems cannot be solved unless and until they are carefully defined and examined.
One of the things that political leaders share among themselves is that the South Dakota Democratic Party is in a state of disarray. Campaign staffers from the Daschle and Herseth campaigns have admitted they did not want the state party to chime in on their campaigns. It may have done damage. The mishandling of the food tax repeal is one of the specific examples cited. The state Republican efforts to spin for their candidates were not particularly effective or even intelligent, but there was no one out there to counteract the spin. So, the Republican message was largely unopposed.
However, it is also time for people to take a good, hard look at its citizens. People involved in the Daschle campaign said they became alarmed during the last month preceding the election at the downright viciousness and hatred exhibited by ordinary people. One campaign leader said, "The fact is that these are not nice people. Why would anyone want to live among them?" Again, South Dakotans tend to mouth all the cliches about the clean and crime-free way of life they cherish while some of the meanest and most bigoted people in the nation are setting a malicious and perfidious tone to everything they touch. It is time to address what some of the citizens of South Dakota are really like.
That right there is the contempt and condescension that Daschle and his supporters had for South Dakotans. No doubt that contempt and condescension were factors in his defeat.
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