Daschle Orchestrates Permanent Campaign

The Boston Globe revealed today that Tom Daschle is architect of the "permanent campaign" (the words of the Boston Globe) against Senate Republicans.  The Globe says Daschle's new effort is "being considered a new benchmark in the trend toward 'permanent campaigns,' which specialists said is transforming the political culture."  SDP has been reporting for more than a year on Daschle staffers' permanent campaign against Senator Thune and it's now very clear that it comes right from the top:

Democratic group targets Senate GOP

Daschle aiding project to gather, spread criticism

By Rick Klein, Boston Globe Staff  |  March 2, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Hoping to strike back at Republicans who mounted a yearslong effort to oust him from office, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is helping raise millions of dollars to form a new political advocacy group aimed at creating a clearinghouse of opposition-research information against all Senate Republicans.

Senate Majority Project is to formally launch today, with Daschle and other Democrats looking to bring in more than $2 million to collect and disseminate political information critical of all GOP senators, not just the handful of vulnerable incumbents whom Democrats have targeted this year. The project is the first concerted attempt by Democrats to create a permanent opposition-research arm focusing on all Republicans.

''It [is] time to stop playing defense all the time and start holding every Republican accountable for what they do in Washington," Daschle wrote in a fund-raising letter to prospective donors last month.

The Democrats' project is being considered a new benchmark in the trend toward ''permanent campaigns," which specialists said is transforming the political culture. Pressuring senators as many as five years before they're up for reelection increases the need for money to fight back; that requires big campaign donors and constant fund-raising even as Congress wrestles with ways to reduce the influence of money in politics, said Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University.

''The campaign is extending endlessly," Zelizer said. ''If you're going to really conduct a serious campaigns for the Senate in offyears, it's going to increase the importance of raising money, and it's going to cost even more to run campaigns."