Of All Senate Races, GOP Hungers Most for a Victory in Daschle's South Dakota

BY JAMIE DETTMER - Special to the Sun

October 11, 2004

WASHINGTON - Senate races don't get much more furious than the intense struggle being waged in South Dakota. In their bid to keep control of the upper house, Republicans have targeted half a dozen Senate seats held by Democrats, but the one that would give the Grand Old Party the greatest glee to capture is the one occupied by the minority leader, Thomas Daschle.

Last month, a national audience got a glimpse of what South Dakotans have been experiencing for months in an intense race pitting Mr. Daschle against a former congressman, John Thune. On NBC's "Meet the Press" the two tore into each other for an hour, displaying a personal animosity that by comparison makes the debate encounters between President Bush and Senator Kerry seem tepid.

In one icy pen-pointing exchange, Mr. Thune accused the incumbent of giving comfort to America's foes and undermining the morale of American troops deployed in Iraq. Mr. Daschle shot back: "John's attacks on me, where I come from, would earn a trip to the woodshed."

So far neither candidate has dragged the other to the woodshed, but arguably both have given cause, with negative ads and sharp words and, with only weeks to go before the vote and with the outcome too close to call, the race is likely to intensify and get even nastier.

"It's basically still a toss-up," an assistant professor of history and political science at Dakota State University in Madison, Christopher Maynard, said. "A lot of different polls show it to be within a few points. Both men know that. That's why the rhetoric is so heated."

It isn't just rhetoric that's being poured into the campaign. The Mt. Rushmore state has a population of about 755,000, and for such a sparsely populated jurisdiction big money is being spent in the fight.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Daschle has raised $13.5 million for the race and Mr. Thune about $6.1 million. On top of that, the national Republican and Democratic Senate campaign committees are sponsoring their own TV spots. Political ads for this close race are hard to avoid and blare constantly from TVs and radios, from Sioux Falls to Deadwood.

In addition, Mr. Daschle has been dashing around the state announcing one federal pork-barrel project after another. Some of the projects may seem parochial, including $50,000 for a new firehouse in Spearfish, $20,000 for a theater in Watertown, and $100,000 for a retirement home in Aberdeen, but every vote will count on November 2.

On the back of the federal cash, Daschle supporters push the idea that it would be foolish for a remote state such as South Dakota to lose the representation of such a powerful lawmaker as Mr. Daschle.

Many Daschle ads have focused on the projects the senator has helped to start by obtaining federal money. "I sit at one of the most powerful desks in the world, and right now that desk belongs to the people of South Dakota," Mr. Daschle told local reporters. "Right now, we're at the front of the line in the Senate, in the Congress. The question is whether we want to go to the back of the line or stay at the front."

The Senate minority leader has also thrown his weight behind a bipartisan $3 billion aid package for drought stricken farmers and ranchers, from which a significant amount of money would be directed to South Dakota and other Great Plains states. "This will mean hundreds of millions of dollars in help for South Dakota farmers and ranchers," Mr. Daschle has crowed.

But Mr. Daschle isn't the only beneficiary from the aid package. It has been backed also by the GOP, which wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2002 Senate race when Mr. Thune ran against Democratic incumbent Tim Johnson in the midst of another severe drought in farming states. The Bush administration opposed drought relief back then, and pollsters say Mr. Thune lost his race because of the issue.

Neither candidate is a stranger to close fights. Two years ago Mr. Thune, after observing a term-limits pledge and stepping down following three terms' service as the state's lone member of the House of Representatives, lost the Senate race to Mr. Johnson by 528 votes. Mr. Daschle, a protege of the former Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell of Maine, won his first congressional race back in 1978 by a margin of just 139 votes.

However tough his last Senate run was, for Mr. Thune this race is even more challenging. Mr. Johnson was a weaker opponent than Mr. Daschle. In Washington the minority leader may be the archopponent of Mr. Bush and a highly effective obstructionist who has led, among other things, the successful Democratic blocking of Bush judicial nominations. In South Dakota - which Mr. Bush carried easily in 2000 and will again this year - Mr. Daschle portrays himself as an ally of the president. The Democrat has run what Republicans dub shameless TV spots showing him hugging the president shortly after Mr. Bush's speech on the September 11 terror attacks.

"Tom is literally running out of the arms of Michael Moore and into the arms of the president in South Dakota," Mr. Thune said.

The Bush ads remind South Dakota pollsters of a tactic the pro-choice Mr. Daschle used in his first Senate race, in 1986, when he pledged to "do everything in my power to persuade others that abortion is wrong," and secured an open letter from nuns who taught him in school that said, "We know and we tell those with whom we speak of your abhorrence for abortion - and of your commitment to life."

Despite the resourcefulness of his opponent, Mr. Thune says he can pull off a victory this time. He has sought to tie Mr. Daschle to the Democrats' national political agenda and to highlight the Senate minority leader's tendency to act and talk in different ways when he is in Washington and when he is in his home state. He charges that Mr. Daschle has forsaken the state's conservative values, and he has attacked Mr. Daschle for opposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, supporting abortion rights, backing gun control, and opposing a constitutional ban on flag-burning.

The Native American vote could prove crucial. In his race against Mr. Johnson, Mr. Thune neglected that vote, but this time he has campaigned strongly to secure a share of it.

"It's all going to come down to who catches the wind and turns out the vote," Mr. Thune said recently.