South Dakota Politics

Hugh Hewitt plugs Dakota Alliance

Hugh Hewitt is taking note of Senator Daschle's embrace of Michael Moore in a piece headlined "Trouble in South Dakota." Hugh also takes the opportunity to point out the effect of the Dakota Alliance on the Senate race in South Dakota. Unfortunately, I have to get back to studying for the bar exam. More on this later.

Daschle's negative blog ads

The Campaign Web Review blog notes the recent switch in tactics in Tom Daschle's blog ads, and asks, "Why the shift from negative to positive?" Note that the editor of CWR is a former staffer for Al Gore, and yet still characterizes a Daschle blog ad as "negative." That's a more accurate description than the ostensibly objective David Kranz, the dean of South Dakota political reporters, could bring himself to describe it (Scroll to bottom).

New Daschle blog ad everywhere on the liberal blogosphere

SDP reader Ryan Knutson points out that the new Daschle blog ad is popping up everywhere on the liberal blog circuit:

Talking Points Memo
Eschaton
TalkLeft
Political Wire
Washington Monthly
Pandagon
Matthew Gross
Nathan Newman

Surprisingly, Daschle hasn't advertised on Daily Kos. Maybe he's a bit sensitive after comments like these.

Daschle's "blog" sputters back to life

Remember that story that came out last summer about Tom Daschle starting a blog? First it was called "Travels with Tom," chronicling his trip around the state during the August recess. Even Maureen Dowd made fun of it, calling it a "blahg." The Financial Times just rolled its eyes. Then there was something called "Dakota Weblog" or something like that which Steve Hildebrand posted to once or twice and then forgot about. Today, Daschle kicked off his latest blogging adventure, called "Daschle Digest."

Wait a minute. Isn't that what they call the Argus Leader?

Daschle writes that his blog "will consist of interesting stories and the latest news, as well as updates on legislation and other issues from South Dakota and Washington." Maybe he can fill us in on why he abruptly cancelled his planned bipartisan fact-finding mission to Iraq with Bill Frist. That would be an interesting story.

Kaus slams Daschle's self-serving "outrage"

Mickey Kaus weighs in on Tom Daschle's misplaced outrage regarding the misconduct of U.S. troops at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison: "Daschle's Outrage." Excerpt:

Leave it to a U.S. Senator to confront shameful acts of inhumanity that endanger the nation and get all outraged over ... a disregard of Congressional prerogatives! "Why were we not told in a classified briefing why this happened, and that it happened at all?" asked Senator Daschle, in a complaint echoed by Senators McCain and Warner. "That is inexcusable; it's an outrage." (Why, they had to hear it on CBS! They were unprepared!) Leave it to our get-a-new-angle media culture to play up these self-serving institutional complaints as if they were in the same universe as the abuse itself. No wonder politicians succeed by running against Washington. ....

How, exactly, would briefing senators have helped the situation? It wouldn't have stopped the abuse, which had already transpired. Mainly, it would have multiplied the number of potentially talkative people who knew, increasing the chance that the news would get out and do the damage to America's reputation that it has done, no?

Daschle's Diary

The blog "From the Roots" seems to be a message board for Senate Democrats, so keep your eye on it. Senator Daschle himself has written a few posts, which are definitely worth reading, and which can be accessed HERE. Interestingly, Daschle's comments appear under a banner that reads "Pulling the Bush Out!" which leaves one wondering why Tom Daschle boasts about supporting President Bush 75 percent of the time if he wants to "pull the Bush out."

The South Dakota section of "From the Roots" is also worth reading closely, although "Cara" uses the same talking points for all of her "Political Backdrops."

In one of his posts, Daschle claims to be "troubled" by Halliburton's activities in the Persian Gulf, implicitly accusing Vice President Cheney of corruption. I myself am troubled by the fact that Tom Daschle voted to add billions in bailouts to the airline industry (which his wife lobbies for) in the recent passage of the pension bill. Now Tom Daschle is holding up the pension bill until he gets a guarantee from Republicans that he can participate in conference committees on all legislation this session. But the pension bill wouldn't have to go to conference if Tom Daschle had not added billions of dollars to the bill to help out the airline industry. In one fell swoop, Tom Daschle has delivered a bailout for his wife's clients, and is trying to gain political advantage on the backs of workers and their pensions.

The "Man Without Qualities" blog has a great analysis of Tom Daschle's conflicting priorities in a post headlined "Daschle Descending."