South Dakota Politics

Campaign Spending

Here's an article in today's Rapid City Journal about campaign spending in the last Senate race.  Excerpt:

Sen.-elect John Thune, R-S.D., took in $15.25 million and spent $12.9 million in his successful bid to replace Democrat Tom Daschle in the U.S. Senate.

Congressional candidates had to submit post-general election campaign spending reports to the Federal Election Commission by midnight Thursday.

The Thune campaign provided a summary of its report to the Rapid City Journal, but campaign staffers for Daschle could not be reached. The voice-mail box at Daschle's campaign headquarters was full, and cell-phone numbers for campaign employees were not working Friday.

Daschle's pre-general election report, which covered campaign finance activity through Oct. 13, showed his campaign had raised $18.4 million and spent $17.2 million.

This week's report from Thune showed that his campaign took in $1.89 million and spent $1.88 million between Oct. 14 and Nov. 22. His campaign has $1.9 million cash on hand and no debts.

Daschle campaign leader: Ordinary South Dakotans "not nice people"

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.

South Dakota delegation in North Sioux City

The Yankton Press & Dakotan has an article today headlined "Lawmakers Declare Unity During Forum" which also contains the photo above.  Despite the show of unity, everybody pictured looks rather ill-at-ease, particularly Johnson.  One gets the impression he's still a bit salty about Thune defeating Daschle.

Ag Secretary Choice

From today's edition of The Hotline:

This Back Story Has Intrigue, Plot Twists And A Love Of Corn
      The "behind-the-scenes movement" towards the pick "began over breakfast at a Village Inn in Omaha" days after Ag Sec Ann Veneman announced her resignation. NE GOP chair David Kramer and NE GOP exec dir Chris Peterson discussed whether any NEans might want the job. They agreed that Peterson, an ex-Johanns aide, should call Johanns "to determine if he had any interest." Johanns "told Peterson he'd consider the ag post a dream job and gave his permission to convey that message" to the WH. Peterson called WH political affairs dir Matt Schlapp and Kramer called BC'04 mgr Ken Mehlman. The "seed was planted and" the WH "took it from there." Johanns met with Mehlman at the RGA meeting in New Orleans 11/04, and on 12/1, he sat down with Bush "who offered him the position" (Walton, Lincoln Journal-Star, 12/3).
      The Johanns pick "was the best-kept secret at the State Capitol." AS late as 9:15 am 12/2, "neither Johanns' staff nor" NE LG Dave Heineman (R) "knew anything official" about the decision (Stoddard, Omaha World-Herald, 12/2).

NYT: Senate has become more pro-life

First, be sure to vote for the Daschle v. Thune blog HERE.

The New York Times has an article in today's edition headlined "Changing Senate Looks Better to Abortion Foes" which contains a photo of Senator-elect John Thune conversing with Senator-elect Tom Coburn outside Majority Leader Frist's office on Capitol Hill:

Here's an excerpt from today's story:

But the strengthening of Republican control and the addition of senators for whom the abortion issue ranks very high, like Mr. Coburn, Representative David Vitter of Louisiana and former Representative John Thune of South Dakota, could have a deeper effect on the Senate than a simple vote count suggests.

In fact, several leaders of the abortion-rights movement indicated in interviews that they felt very much on the defensive these days, both in terms of fending off new legislation and in dealing with the prospect of a Supreme Court nomination fight, given new urgency by the illness of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

This article in today's edition of the NYT is a marked contrast from an article that appeared in the NYT shortly after Senator Daschle's election to the Senate in 1986 headlined "A turning point on the abortion issue?"  Here's an excerpt from the 1986 NYT article:

After long years on the defensive, advocates of abortion rights are cheering the results of last week's elections. They say that the victory of pro-choice candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the defeat of several anti-abortion measures on state ballots, strengthens their movement not only to resist further erosion, but to regain the initiative on such issues as public financing of abortions for poor women. ...

Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, says the pro-choice side picked up at least three seats in the Senate and five in the House, while no pro-choice incumbent was defeated for any Federal office.

The three Senate seats, all won by Democrats, are in Georgia, with the substitution of Wyche Fowler Jr. for an anti-abortion Republican freshman, Mack Mattingly; South Dakota, where Representative Tom Daschle defeated James Abdnor; and North Carolina, where the Senate seat was held by one of the chamber's most committed abortion foes, John P. East, until his suicide last summer.

It's interesting to observe the pendulum swing on the issue of abortion over the decades.  In 1986, the Times was gleeful at the prospect of a "turning point" for abortion rights with the election of Tom Daschle to the Senate.  Today, the Times glumly notes that abortion foes now have more friends in the Senate, due in part to Daschle's defeat at the hands of Senator-elect Thune.

Blog Awards

"Daschle v. Thune" was nominated for "best election coverage" as part of the 2004 Weblog Awards.  Please stop by and vote here if you liked the coverage!  We're beating Talking Points Memo now 1.7% to 1.5%!!

UPDATE:  Here's a more direct link to the poll.  Now we're beating Talking Points Memo 2.8% to 1.8%!!

Rather's End

Peggy Noonan on Dan Rather in today's Wall Street Journal:

My first thought: It is a hard world. We all know this in the abstract, but it can take you aback in the particular. In public life the entire body of your work--an entire career of almost 50 years--can now essentially be summed up and dismissed by the last headline on your career, which in this case is "Rather Retires Under Cloud After Forged Documents Story." If Dan had retired of his own volition a year ago, that would not be the headline. "Long Career Reflected Stunning Rise of U.S. Media" would be more like it.

I am not saying timing is everything, although it can be rather a lot. I'm thinking of . . . well, Richard Nixon. Nixon had one of the great gutsy careers in American political history, and on the greatest issue of his lifetime--the ugliness and destructiveness of communism here and abroad--he was right, and put his career on the line. He did much good. But his headline is Watergate.

...

Dan, it was obvious to me, was a sort of establishment liberal--not a wild leftist and not an ideologue, but whatever smart liberals thought was more or less what he wound up thinking, and saying. I couldn't write his views well, because I didn't buy them and didn't fully understand them. I couldn't write my views, because the show had to reflect his thinking. So I went to him and told him my problem. He was great. He said: On any given issue that we discuss, give the liberal point of view fairly and give the conservative point of view fairly, and then we'll end it with my opinion, because it's my show. I thought that sounded good.

...

Probably the worst moment in his career, because it was arguably the one most obvious in showing bias and a political agenda, was the time Dan tried to beat up George H.W. Bush live, on the "CBS Evening News," over Iran-contra. Mr. Bush decked him instead, and with a question that reverberates: How would you like your whole career to be judged by one mistake? I do not doubt that CBS News that night thought it was going to take down a vice president, and wanted to. And was embittered by its failure. Which may have contributed to the years long, Ahab-like quest of producer Mary Mapes to bring down George W. Bush with documents it took bloggers less than 24 hours to reveal as fabrications.

Ag

Bush has chosen the Governor of Nebraska to be the next Secretary of Agriculture: 

Born in Iowa and raised on a dairy farm, Johanns, 54, became a lawyer and served in county and city government before becoming mayor of Lincoln, Neb., in 1991.  He won the governor's office in 1998 and in 2002 became the first Republican to win re-election in more than four decades.  Johanns had been considered a possible challenger to Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson in 2006.

Argus

Sibby is having an email back-and-forth with former KELO-Land News anchor Steve Hemmingsen.  In his recent column, Hemmingsen is somewhat critical of bloggers but notes this:

There's no question that the blogs, which the Democrats wrote off but which are cheap to start, were an adjunct to the Thune victory. It was mostly TV commercials and Bush coattails, but in a close one everything is in play.

For their part, the Democrats might try a little honesty with their candidates. Most of them, including Senators Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson,run under a "don't ask, don't tell" banner. You hardly ever hear them mention their party except at party functions. It's probably good politics in an inherently Republican state, but it didn't work this time. At least the bloggers were there to keepreminding us that Daschle is a Democrat.

Hemmingsen is concerned about SDP and I being consultants and worries about if we're "objective."  Um, no, that's the thing about blogs.  They have points of view.  Hemmingsen is concerned because the blogs might "look like news."  They do?  It looks like an opinionated blog to me.  Here's the thing--blogs never claimed to be "objective," but the Argus Leader did and still does.  That's why the Argus became a pinata, because they're aren't "objective" either, thus the blog criticism.  And note that Hemmingsen never addresses the substantive evidence that the Argus was not objective during the campaign.  Let's have that debate.  And if Hemmingsen likes, he can start with the criticisms of the Argus made by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, World Magazine, The Weekly Standard, The New York Times, Roll Call, Talon News, Glenn Reynolds, Hugh Hewitt, John Hinderaker, John Fund, Jody Bottum...

Thune to appear on "Jeff Gannon's Washington"

Jeff Gannon, resident DC expert on South Dakota politics, will have Senator-elect Thune on his radio show as a guest Thursday, December 2, at 3:45PM Eastern time.  Thune will talk about his historic win over Tom Daschle and what he hopes to accomplish for South Dakota and America.  You can listen to an internet stream of the show by clicking HERE.

Road-hunting and the U.S. Constitution

Is a statute permitting road hunters to shoot at game birds flushed from roads or ditches even after the birds have flown over private property unconstitutional?  A state trial court judge ruled today that such a statute is a taking of private land for public use without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment, according to an AP story headlined "Circuit judge strikes down new road hunting law."  Excerpt:

[Judge] Trandahl's ruling said prior decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts have held that landowners have the right to use and enjoy the space above their land. Prior court decisions also have found that firing above private property is a taking that requires compensation, she said.

Ag

Sibby:

The Rapid City Journal is reporting that Larry Diedrich, Republican's unsuccessful 2004 candidate for South Dakota's only U.S. House seat, is on the short list for the Secretary of Ag position. Here is what South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson thinks:

"I have not seen his name on any lists talked about by the Washington establishment," Johnson said. "That doesn't mean his name won't come up, either for secretary or some other office. But I would guess Larry is not going to be our next secretary of agriculture."

Why doesn’t Johnson send a letter to the President urging the appointment? He has done so many times before on various issues. I believe Johnson cares more about Democrats than he does South Dakota. If Diedrich were a Democrat, Johnson would be on top of his whining routine.

Read the whole thing.

Hotline

Here's The Hotline summary of an article in today's Argus Leader (I can't get the AL link to work):

DASCHLE: Making The Sioux Fall A Little Softer

Aides to Senate Min. leader Tom Daschle "can still get paid for up to two months" after Daschle leaves office in 1/05. "The Senate created provisions last week at the request" of Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist "to provide severance pay and benefits for staff who worked for Daschle for at least six months." The aides "will have to relinquish their severance" once they get new jobs. Frist "proposed the change" before Thanksgiving. It "passed unanimously." Frist spokesperson Bob Stevenson: "You can't expect professionals to work on Capitol Hill in high-pressure situations if they know that if the person they work for is defeated, they're going to be left high and dry" (Madden, Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 12/1).

The New Brokaw

Last Sunday, the Argus Leader had a long piece about the retirement of Tom Brokaw, a South Dakota son.  His replacement will be Brian Williams, who apparently said recently that bloggers were "on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with a modem."  One of the DBA's patrons, John Hinderaker (another South Dakota son) of Powerline who spent some time with Williams' on election night and thought Williams liked bloggers, comments:

So: is Williams a secret admirer of bloggers like us, or not?

Beats me. I do wonder, though, about the bathroom reference. First we're in our pajamas, now we're posting from our bathrooms. What's next, nude blogging from our hot tubs? Get over it, I say.

INDC has this:

Blog Stats

In all the post-election hub-bub, I missed this article in the liberal magazine The Nation.  The author has much to say about how the internet is changing politics.  Note these statistics:

§ About two-thirds of American adults use the Internet, and more than 55 percent have access to a high-speed Internet connection at either home or work.

§ More than 53 million people have contributed material online, according to a spring 2003 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

§ More than 15 million have their own website.

§ A new blog, or online journal, is created every 5.3 seconds, according to Technorati.com, a site that tracks the known universe of these easily updated websites. As of November 1, there were almost 4.3 million blogs, a million more than three months before. More than half of them are regularly updated by their creators, producing more than 400,000 fresh postings every day. (Full disclosure: My brother David is the founder of Technorati.)

§ A well-written blog, Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo, gets more than 500,000 monthly visitors--as many as the entire website of The American Prospect, the magazine where Marshall used to work, at a fraction of the cost.

§ Of the approximately 400,000-500,000 people who attended a political meeting through the social-networking site Meetup.com this election season, half had never gone to a political meeting before. Sixty percent were under 40.

§ Attendees of Meetups for Democratic Party presidential candidates reported making an average of $312 in political contributions last year.

§ A two-minute political cartoon lampooning both Kerry and Bush, put out by JibJab.com this past summer, had 10 million viewings in the month of July--three times the number of hits on both presidential campaign websites combined--and has since been viewed another 55 million times.

Insiders Criticizing Daschle

From the The Hill:

Some Democratic aides say Daschle’s organization became too focused on home-state concerns as Daschle’s own Senate seat became increasingly in peril.

“The way Daschle press shop was set up, it was too slow,” said one Democratic press secretary. “It was too narrow. They just didn’t do enough for other members. The message always just seemed to be Daschle’s message — as opposed to the message of the party.”

One Senate Democratic aide said Daschle’s press shop became more disciplined and active with the arrivals of communications director Todd Webster and policy adviser Phil Schiliro. But, “The perception is it probably all happened a little late,” said the aide.

An aide close to Daschle declined to provide a comment on suggestions that Daschle’s press aides could have communicated the Democratic message more effectively.

Over the last year, Daschle’s staff focused on building and coordinating a Democratic message between the House and Senate, and between various Senate Democratic offices, many of which failed to agree on policy and tactics. One Democratic Senate aide pointed to passage of the controversial prescription drug law — an issue the aide said the GOP had “stolen.”

“If the caucus had stuck together in opposition to the Republican plan, it wouldn’t — shouldn’t — have happened,” said the aide.

Reader Comments on "inferiority complex" Theory

Here are a couple of representative comments from the mailbag on the post this morning about an alleged South Dakota "inferiority complex" causing Daschle's defeat:

Secularists/adherents of naturalism will use ANY way they can to discount
non-material reality such  as love, morals, principles, justice, etc.  The
commentaries you cited all resort to this device.  It is so prevalent in the
post-modern era we sometimes fail to notice it.  I would guess that the
majority of South Dakotans are decidedly inhabitants of a world that rejects the presuppositions of postmodernism.  So, when Uncle Tom identified more closely with his DC postmodernist buddies more than with his constituents, South Dakotans felt the mismatch and decided to line things up more the way they had been (or seemed to have been) when Daschle was first elected. Thune did a good job revealing Daschle for who he is.

Here is another from a reader who farms near my parents' hometown of Winfred, South Dakota (more on Winfred here):

Since when do we assign inferiority complexes to people who demand honesty and forthrightness from the politicians they send to represent them in Washington.  I have a big problem with those who say we have an inferiority complex when we simply want integrity.  Daschle became a liberal Democrat, whether by intent or not, as he moved up in the Democrat party ranks.  He did get “too big for his britches” in some people’s minds as shown by his lifestyle in Washington DC and his sometimes condescending attitude.   But most simply felt that Daschle now embraced ideas and values contrary to theirs and was not the same person as they elected 20+ years ago.  To want a senator with views similar to mine and the majority of South Dakotan’s does not mean we have an inferiority complex.  We are an intelligent, reasonable people in this state and deserve credit for such in this election.

Democrats to Rely More on Bloggers

From today's edition of The Hotline:

Incoming-Sen Min Leader Harry Reid (NV) "is forming a communications 'war room' to promote Democrats' messages and respond to Republican criticism." The "center will be launched" 1/4/05. Jim Manley, press secretary for Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), "has been hired as a staff director for the center" that will be located on Capitol Hill. Phil Singer, ex-media adviser to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), "will be communications director, handling 'rapid response.'" A "15-member message team will include press aides who will publicize Democratic activities to Internet news organizations and bloggers," Reid said. Reid press sec., Tessa Hafen, "will focus on Nevada media and regional news outlets" (Tetreault, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/30).

New dictionary term: "blog"

CNN is reporting:

A four-letter term that came to symbolize the difference between old and new media during this year's presidential campaign tops U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster's list of the 10 words of the year.

Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks," was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year.

Eight entries on the publisher's top-10 list related to major news events, from the presidential election -- represented by words such as incumbent and partisan -- to natural phenomena such as hurricane and cicada.

Springfield, Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster compiles the list each year by taking the most researched words on its Web sites and then excluding perennials such as affect/effect and profanity.

The company said most online dictionary queries were for uncommon terms, but people also turned to its Web sites for words in news headlines.

"That is what occurred in this year's election cycle ... with voluminous hits for words like 'incumbent,' 'electoral,' 'partisan,' and, of course, our number one Word of the Year, 'blog,"' Merriam-Webster President and Publisher John Morse said in a statement.

Americans called up blogs in droves for information and laughs ahead of the November 2 presidential election.

Freed from the constraints that govern traditional print and broadcast news organizations, blogs spread gossip while also serving as an outlet for people increasingly disenchanted with mainstream media.

Washingtonian

From the December issue of the Washingtonian comes an article entitled "Driving a Jag and Making a Million or More a Year":

Watch for Washington kingmaker Bob Barnett to play a key role in finding a new position for former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle.

One of the issues that led to Daschle's defeat in South Dakota was the recent purchase of a $2-million Foxhall Road mansion plus his wife's blue Jaguar that sits in the driveway. Now that he has been defeated, friends say, he might finally be able to pay for his family's new toys.

Barnett spent much of the preelection season shopping one of Daschle's colleagues, retiring Louisiana senator John Breaux. Asking price for Breaux was said to be $1 million to $1.5 million a year.

Showing lots of interest in Breaux was the law/lobbying firm of Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz. One of Baker Donelson's most sought-after lobbyists is aviation expert Linda Daschle, the one-time beauty queen and wife of Tom Daschle.

Unlike Breaux, Daschle is not an attorney--so he might not attract offers quite as high as for Breaux, whose wheeler-dealer Louisiana persona is tailor-made for lobbying.

Daschle is more cerebral than your average politician, and he has a keen interest in writing and history. One possibility, friends say, would be to succeed Lawrence Small as head of the Smithsonian. But he might well be recruited to head Common Cause or some other good-government group.

Breaux received a yearly Senate salary of $158,100; as leader, Daschle got $175,700. The tears Daschle might be shedding over his November defeat may be dried by Barnett, who negotiated a book advance of $500,000 for Daschle in 2002, when he was still considered a prospect for the presidency.

The Great Seal

A reader sent along the following image:

SDP becomes a group effort

Professor Lauck has closed up shop at DVT, and will continue blogging here at SDP.  Be sure to read his inaugural post immediately below.  Other new bloggers will be joining up, too, so keep coming back here for your daily Dakota Alliance dose.

Meanwhile, legendary KELO anchor emeritus Steve Hemmingsen has another great new contribution up at his "Weighing In" website (or is it a blog?) headlined "The Opera Ain't Over."  I've never met Hemmingsen, but my instinct has always been that he's a good guy (which I thought would come across in past posts I've written about him), so I'm a bit puzzled by his comment to the effect that the Dakota Alliance is "mildly anti-Hemmingsen."  Anyway, read Hemmingsen, and welcome aboard, Professor Lauck!

Psych 101

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.

---

[1] Rapid City Journal, November 17, 2004. 

[2] Argus Leader, November 7, 2004. 

[3] Argus Leader, November 14, 2004.

[4] Argus Leader, November 7, 2004.

[5] Minneapolis Star-Tribune, November 7, 2004.

Base closings may present opportunity for Ellsworth

The LA Times recently published an article about the next round of military base closings in 2005, under the headline "The Race to Steal Bases Heats Up." Apparently, California is seen as the most vulnerable state in terms of base closures. The main premise of the article is that other states are circling like vultures to grab the remains of whatever is left of the bases that end up closing. It seems that, contrary to what the Daschle campaign was saying about Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City being vulnerable to closure, Ellsworth is in a position of strength, because it may have a mission added to its role that was formerly the mission of a base closed in California. Then there's this passage in the LAT article:

But key states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Florida and Texas that voted for Bush are not supposed to get any favors. And liberal states such as California are not supposed to be punished. Indeed, politics and lobbying will play no role in the evaluations, said Raymond DuBois, the Pentagon's chief architect for the coming base closures. The agency has sealed off lobbyists and consultants from the secret analytical work being done by the military services and seven specialized cross-service teams inside the Defense Department. Their recommendations are expected in a few months. "Anyone who wants to trust us can appreciate the fact that we have wrapped this process in a pretty tight seal," DuBois said in an interview. In February, the Defense Department published a list of eight official criteria it would use to evaluate base closures, nearly all of them involving military or economic issues. DuBois added that cities that hired lobbyists or promised lavish spending programs to keep bases were just wasting their money. "We cannot take into account promises of future investments," he said. "I don't want wealthier states outbidding other areas."

It has been reported that the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce plans to spend $1.3 million on lobbyists to protect Ellsworth.

Sen. Cornyn: Red state Dems an "endangered species"

The Washington Times has an article today headlined "For Democrats in red states, 2006 daunting."  Excerpt:

"They have something to worry about, and they need look no farther than Tom Daschle," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, referring to this month's defeat of the Senate minority leader from the red state of South Dakota, which Mr. Bush won by 22 percentage points.

"Any Democratic senator running for re-election in a state where the president did extremely well has got to know they are an endangered species," he said.

Dems hold grudge against Frist

An editorial from yesterday's edition of the New York Times headlined "Senator Frist Tightens the Screws" discusses the ramifications of Frist's visit to South Dakota to campaign for John Thune.  Excerpt:

But nastiness is in the air as the new Congress limbers up. Democrats vow to never forget Dr. Frist's foray into South Dakota to help unhorse his counterpart, Tom Daschle, the minority leader, whose farewell speech was boycotted by a victorious, decidedly unsentimental majority. Dr. Frist, who many expect to run for president next time, seems beyond the range of minority Democrats, but not G.O.P. moderates seething at the rules change.