Deconstructing Daschle

Try to get a rise out of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., and you're bound to be frustrated. Suggest that he hasn't come up with a steady and coherent Democratic message heading into the November elections. Recount some stinging potshots about his legislative and political strategies from a fellow Democrat or two. Ask him whether the fact that the Senate hasn't passed a budget this year reflects a failure of his leadership.

When such criticisms were mentioned during a recent National Journal interview with Daschle, he listened intently and then deflected each charge in a confident, unruffled way. He was measured and disciplined, and simply would not take the bait. Whoever first used the word "unflappable" surely must have had someone like Daschle in mind. He has perfected what Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist, described in an interview as the ability of certain Senate leaders to project "an almost Zen-like serenity."

Those traits already have served Daschle well during his first year as majority leader. But as the high-stakes 2002 political campaigns go into full swing, he will have to show that his even-tempered yet tenacious approach can produce results in Washington that will help boost Democratic candidates in November. That's a tall order, given his party's ever-so-slight advantage in the Senate -- just one vote -- and the likelihood that partisan warfare will become even more intense as Election Day nears.

To further complicate matters, by not ruling out a possible run for president in 2004, Daschle has given Republicans on Capitol Hill ammunition to question his motives and to portray him as an obstructionist determined to thwart President Bush's agenda. Daschle, 54, shows little concern about such salvos and emphasizes that they will not distract him.

"I have one focus, and that focus is exclusively on maintaining a majority of the Senate -- hopefully winning a couple of additional seats -- and I will do whatever it takes, within the confines of what is prudent and appropriate, to accomplish that goal," Daschle said in the interview with National Journal. "And then, I will consider my future and whatever other additional roles there may be for me. But not until then."

The Republican rantings against Daschle do not square with his public image. The notion that he is a hard-charging partisan, hell-bent on scoring political points at every turn, seems belied by the affable, low-key manner, often tinged with humor, that he demonstrates during his regular "dugout" briefings with congressional reporters broadcast on C-SPAN and during his frequent appearances on the Sunday talk shows.

Yet Daschle's conciliatory and mild-mannered public persona actually conceals a very different style behind the scenes. Folks on and off Capitol Hill who have watched him closely over the past year suggest that out of the public view, he is a tough-as-nails political hardballer. In fact, Daschle's way of leading the Senate is sometimes described as the proverbial iron fist in the velvet glove.

"He has the style of a guy who sounds very reasonable, and when you look down, you're bleeding," said James A. Thurber, a professor of government and the director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.

In an interview with National Journal, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said that he and Daschle have "a pretty good relationship, for the most part." But Lott could not stop himself from also blurting out that Daschle's low-key demeanor "makes people underestimate him -- he's a pretty ruthless politician." The GOP leader immediately added that he didn't mean that characterization "in an ugly way."

Daschle's allies insist that he is effective because, although he can be tough, he also has seemingly infinite patience with his colleagues. He goes out of his way to seek their views, they say, and only then decides upon the course of action he sees as best for Senate Democrats. His approach is most often compared to that of his immediate predecessor as Senate Democratic leader, George Mitchell of Maine, the cerebral former federal judge who served as leader from 1989 to 1994.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., who served under both leaders, actually had higher praise for Daschle. "[Daschle] listens, and he brings everybody in," Rockefeller said. "Mitchell was good, but Mitchell didn't bring people in, and he didn't consult with people. He didn't have meetings. Daschle looks people in the eye, and he listens.... That has a congealing effect on people. To me, it's very effective."

When asked about the unhappiness occasionally expressed by Democrats peeved about a position taken by the majority leader, another lawmaker close to Daschle, Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., remarked in an interview: "The Senate is a rowboat filled with titanic egos. Tom Daschle keeps it afloat and moving, and that is a miracle in this age of the Senate."

As the country's highest-ranking elected Democrat, Daschle must counter a Republican president and a GOP-controlled House. The soft-spoken majority leader is clearly in a tight spot.

Daschle's mission of trying to unify his fellow Senate Democrats behind a consistent political game plan is complicated by his Caucus's wide-ranging ideological views -- from the unbridled liberalism of Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., to the sober, tough-minded conservatism of Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga. As if that were not enough, Daschle must also cope with maverick senators on his side of the aisle, such as Miller and Sen. John Breaux, D-La., who are not shy about freelancing deals with the White House.

At the same time, Daschle knows that in a 50-49-1 Senate, every senator is king and can throw sand in the gears of the legislative machinery through filibusters or other parliamentary devices meant to thwart the majority's will. In many ways, he is a leader without a trump card. Interviews with nine of his Senate colleagues reveal a consensus that Daschle may well have the most difficult political job in Washington.

"It is a tough job, and it has gotten tougher and tougher," Lott said. "Part of it is that now you don't need 50 votes -- you've got to have 60 votes. The filibuster and cloture used to be used occasionally for big issues. [In more recent years], it has become an instrument used on almost every bill. You can have 51 votes, you can have 55 votes, but if you don't get 60 votes, you can die. And it is very hard to dredge up 60 votes."

Given the paucity of weapons at his disposal, as well as the institutional obstacles to steering the Senate as freely as he might like, Daschle has not hesitated to act in a surprisingly tough-minded manner. Repeatedly, he has been willing to part company with veteran Democratic colleagues in order to pursue strategies that he sees as better-suited to keeping his party in power after the November elections.

Recently, Daschle upset Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., by suddenly pushing substitute trade legislation in place of the centrist deal Baucus was trying to broker. Daschle also angered veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., by zealously promoting ethanol subsidies that are likely to drive up California gasoline prices. And he aggressively shaped the farm bill behind the scenes in a way that appeared to put Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, in an awkward position.

Meanwhile, Daschle's muscle-flexing angered Republicans late last year, when he snatched the energy bill away from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee after it became obvious that the panel would have supported drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a position that he and most other Democrats adamantly oppose. The committee never marked up the energy bill before it hit the Senate floor.

Yet despite any ruffled feathers, Daschle frequently wound up getting the results he sought. And the Democratic ranks appear to harbor no lingering ill will toward him, even when his moves have seemed abrupt.

Republicans, however, are incensed over what they see as Daschle's peremptory style. Veteran GOP senators have held two recent press conferences -- including one on May 22 that featured three bloodhounds "searching" for the Senate's budget resolution -- to blast the majority leader. Lott contends that Daschle has created a Senate that is nothing more than "a sinkhole."

In the Republicans' view, Daschle has proclivities for bringing legislation to the floor without going through the committee process, for moving at a snail's pace in considering judicial nominations, and for injecting partisanship into debates on measures such as the farm bill that had never before provoked such divisiveness.

"We can't have politics all day, every day," Lott complained at an April 12 press conference. "We can't have partisanship on major bills, like energy and election reform and agriculture. We must get our work done."

In an interview, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, scornfully ticked off bills that he insists could have been acted on far earlier had Daschle not thumbed his nose at the regular committee process. "He's blinked a few times, and that is how we have gotten some things done," Santorum said. "But without him blinking on his partisan tactics, we would get nothing done around here."

Daschle has his own list of bills that the Republicans brought to the Senate floor without committee approval when they were in control. "I'm amazed and somewhat amused, frankly, that they would even consider the criticism of an approach that they subscribed to very, very frequently," he told National Journal. "There is little doubt in my mind that were they in the majority, they would be doing exactly the same thing."

Despite the criticism that Daschle has faced, even some Republicans concede that he has proved adept at getting his way most of the time. Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a group that backs conservative candidates, echoed the GOP charges about Daschle's alleged obstructionism. But Moore also freely acknowledged Daschle's skillfulness.

"I have described him as almost a co-president right now because, next to Bush, he is the most powerful man in Washington," Moore said. "He has exercised that power pretty effectively."

Moore said that his group ran television ads attacking Daschle earlier this year in South Dakota, and that it plans to resume them soon, in an effort "to slow [him] down politically, because he is really on a roll." Moore added: "He's just, unfortunately, a highly effective and partisan Senate majority leader.... He's got the Republicans just tied up in knots."

Even the pugnacious conservative Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, gives Daschle high marks. "The thing that impresses me about Daschle is his ability to unite the Democrats," Gramm said in an interview. "They have been extraordinarily united since they became the majority. And his ability to get those people to vote against their political interests and against reason astounds me."

Commenting on Daschle's ability to steer legislation even if it means taking a different path than a committee chairman prefers, Gramm added: "I have been amazed that these Democrat committee chairmen have not resisted. That's what I mean when I say that I admire his ability to, in essence, just pre-empt his own people. We could never get away with that."

It seems that everybody in Washington these days is reading Robert A. Caro's recently published book, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. Daschle is no exception. In fact, the richly detailed descriptions of Johnson's maneuvers as majority leader so intrigued Daschle that, after listening to an abridged version on tape during his regular morning runs, he is reading the book itself.

"As good as it was as an abridged book, I just really wanted to go back," Daschle said. "It just whetted my appetite for more." That's no small compliment. Last year, he listened to 43 books during his disciplined running regime without subsequently reading any of them.

Daschle may be fascinated with Johnson, but LBJ's successes came as a result of a totally different approach in a very different era -- an approach that simply would not fly today. LBJ had his own signature tactics in getting Senate colleagues to see matters his way. Caro describes the famous "Johnson treatment" -- part cajolery; part flattery; part browbeating, threats, and excruciating arm-twisting -- as he muscled voting-rights legislation through to passage against long odds in 1957.

"He would throw things," Daschle said of LBJ. "I'm not into throwing things." Yet, when asked what remains applicable from Johnson's time to today's Senate, Daschle said he found it "reassuring, in some ways, to know that the Senate as an institution doesn't change that much. There are still very strong personalities with competing agendas, and administrations to contend with and work with. The issues may be different, but the tactics and the circumstances, in many respects, from an institutional point of view, are very much the same."

Still, it is hard to imagine a senator launching a stinging rebuke at LBJ in the way Feinstein recently took aim at Daschle during the debate over ethanol as part of the massive energy bill. Daschle proposed mandating that the total volume of ethanol in the gas supply be substantially increased by 2012. Ethanol is made from corn and helps fuel burn cleaner. The ethanol program is dear to corn farmers in Midwestern states, including Iowa and South Dakota, where Harkin and Sen. Timothy P. Johnson, D-S.D., face tough election challengers.

But Daschle's proposal would impose a hardship on states such as California that have limited ethanol reserves and lack the infrastructure to easily obtain it. On the Senate floor on April 25, Feinstein harshly condemned "a deal cut in secret, when nobody who is affected adversely has a chance to weigh in." Feinstein, a member of the Energy Committee, complained that the measure "was not even run by the committee, that there has been no public hearing held on any part of it. I resent that fact."

According to Congressional Quarterly's Daily Monitor, Feinstein also suggested that Daschle's move personally offended her. "I am upset because he knows how much I cared about this issue," she told CQ. "It's hard to have this kind of thing done by somebody you thought was a friend."

In the end, the Senate approved Daschle's ethanol proposal. When told of Feinstein's charges, Daschle said in the interview: "I am very saddened that Senator Feinstein feels that way.... I might say that we spent hours of time and negotiation trying to accommodate those senators who had concerns and objections, going back almost a couple of years in the case of Senator Feinstein. I still consider her a good friend. We'll have our differences."

Note that Daschle does not even hint at exacting retribution against Feinstein, a marked difference from the Johnson style. Rockefeller observed that Daschle has "a more sophisticated way of leading than LBJ had.

"Look, if Dianne Feinstein had been in the Senate at that time, and LBJ was pushing ethanol, whether she would have spoken up or not, I have no idea, but if she had, she would have been on the D.C. Appropriations Committee," Rockefeller said, referring to a most unwelcome committee assignment. "Tom doesn't do that."

Feinstein is not the only Senate Democrat to aim a zinger at Daschle in recent weeks. Take Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman. He and Daschle had already gone through a chilly period early last year, while Democrats were still the Senate minority, when Baucus worked closely with Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, on the Bush tax cut. Daschle was so distressed about Baucus's efforts, according to an account in The Washington Post, that he informed Baucus at one point that he did not have the authority to complete a deal with Grassley.

So this year, when Baucus and Grassley started working on a bipartisan approach to trade legislation, perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that Daschle would have other ideas. The majority leader blindsided Baucus by offering his own proposal to give a big boost to the federal program of trade-adjustment assistance, or TAA, for displaced workers and to provide a new program of health benefits for retired steelworkers.

The usually taciturn Baucus openly complained about Daschle's maneuver. "I was not happy with the way the bill was put down," Baucus told National Journal's CongressDaily. He added that many Republicans were "shocked" or "miffed" by Daschle's new steelworker proposal.

Unbeknownst to Baucus, Daschle had struck a deal with Rockefeller, the prime advocate of the new assistance for steelworkers, to make the trade legislation the vehicle for that proposal. In return, Daschle had Rockefeller's commitment to oppose drilling in ANWR during the energy bill debate.

In the interview, Rockefeller said of the steel proposal: "He came to me and said, 'Let's put it on TAA.' It was a smart move. You need somebody -- and the steel issue is a perfect example -- who has a tactical and strategic sense, and, as is often said about Tom, a gentle manner, but a steel spine. He has that."

Then Daschle leveraged the steel-assistance issue during negotiations with Republicans, most of whom opposed the proposal. He agreed to drop the steel proposal from the trade legislation itself -- while retaining the right to offer it as a separate amendment -- in return for a GOP commitment to include a provision in the legislation picking up 70 percent of the health care tab for thousands of displaced workers.

When the Senate debated the steel-assistance amendment on May 21, Daschle made an impassioned plea to help workers in that industry, but to no avail. Supporters of the amendment fell four votes short of the 60 required. Nonetheless, Daschle's positioning helped Democrats politically on two highly visible issues -- ANWR and trade -- with two very important constituencies, environmentalists and labor. At the same time, Baucus, who faces a potentially tough re-election battle in a heavily Republican state, will be able to claim credit for having been a leader in getting major trade legislation passed.

That Daschle ticked off some colleagues along the way is no surprise to former Senate Majority Leader Mitchell. "I had plenty of criticism from fellow Democrats, and [former Senate Majority Leader Bob] Dole had criticism from other Republicans," Mitchell said in an interview. "It's part of the process, and it is precisely the absence of any substantial power -- other than moral authority -- in the position of majority leader that makes that inevitable."

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Daschle traveled to a somewhat desolate part of South Dakota called White Lake. Its population is about 400. The closest "big" town is Mitchell (pop. 14,558), some 40 miles to the west. The majority leader had decided he should hear from those directly affected by the farm bill that the Senate was hotly debating at the time.

Daschle, of course, is well-known for his "drive-arounds" in South Dakota, often taken during the August recess, in which he visits all 66 counties to listen to what folks at coffee shops and gas stations have to say. "If there is such a thing as Potomac Fever, Tom Daschle certainly has never been afflicted with it," former Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., a longtime friend, said in an interview.

This approach also is a matter of survival in South Dakota. Just look at the history. Republican Sen. Larry Pressler served 18 years, during which he chaired the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and then went on to lose re-election in 1996. He was viewed as having lost touch with his prairie constituents. Similarly, Democratic Sen. George McGovern, eight years after his disastrous presidential run in 1972, was turned out by voters who sensed his increasing detachment from the state.

In this Republican-tilting state, Daschle has had a career filled with hairbreadth victories, beginning in 1978 when he was elected to the House by exactly 139 votes. His next close race came in 1982, after redistricting cost South Dakota one of its two House seats. Daschle defeated Republican Rep. Clint Roberts, 52 percent to 48 percent. In his first election to the Senate, in 1986, Daschle defeated GOP Sen. James Abdnor by that same 4-point margin.

When George Mitchell announced his retirement in March 1994, Daschle launched a bid for the majority leader's post against Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn., who was the early favorite. But following the November 1994 elections, in which Sasser lost his seat and the Democrats lost Senate control, Daschle wound up facing Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., for the minority leader's post. Daschle showed his knack for playing the insider's game by giving his coveted Finance Committee seat to Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., who then backed his leadership bid. Ultimately, Daschle prevailed by a single vote.

Daschle's constituents are used to seeing him back home, even during hectic times in the Senate. The South Dakota Corn Growers Association helped arrange his recent visit to a White Lake farm owned by 44-year-old David Gillen, who called about 10 other farmers to join the session in his kitchen. Although Gillen opposes abortion and parts with Democrats on some environmental issues, he had nothing but warm feelings for Daschle that afternoon.

"It was a nice visit," Gillen recalled in an interview. "Everybody had input. He asked questions, and we answered directly -- and he listened. I was impressed, I really was. He wasn't trying to convince us that he was right on the issue. He just wanted to know what we thought."

The farmers were especially concerned that although their yields have increased dramatically in recent years, their government subsidies have been based on the level of production from years ago. To South Dakota farmers, updating the government program is "our Holy Grail," said Lisa Richardson of the corn growers' group. Daschle listened as well to concerns about the "loan rate" -- the price the government guarantees for crops -- and the belief that it should be adjusted upward.

Back in Washington, Daschle made his views known to Harkin, who then reversed himself on a tentative deal on subsidies that he had struck with House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest, R-Texas, during the conference committee on the farm bill. Combest at first reacted angrily and walked out of the negotiations. Ultimately, a comprehensive deal was struck that included the subsidy program Daschle had sought. Bush signed it into law on May 13.

Richardson gushed about the big victory Daschle had helped secure for South Dakota farmers, even though she is a Republican who worked for Pressler for six years. "This is hard for me -- he's very effective," she said of Daschle. "We are a very small state, and we have been able to get things done the last two years because we have somebody in that position."

In the farm bill, Daschle had protected not only the interests of his Midwestern constituents, but also those of Southern Senate Democrats. The majority leader joined the successful fight against subsidy-payment limitations that Southern farmers had argued would force them out of business.

Even a tough critic of the final deal on the farm bill, Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, did not slam Daschle. Cook argues that the farm bill did too little to boost conservation and allocates far too much money to commodity subsidies. Yet he said that he understood Daschle's balancing act. "What Senator Daschle is trying to do in a situation like that, what we observed him to do, is herding cats," Cook said. "He is -- really more broadly than Senator Harkin, in this context -- looking out after his Caucus's interests."

When asked during the National Journal interview how the 2002 campaign is shaping up, Daschle replied that Washington is returning to a "more traditional" and more "business-as-usual" cycle. That comment reflects how out-of-the-norm -- really extraordinary -- much of his first year as majority leader has been.

It began with Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords's stunning announcement on May 24, 2001, that he was abandoning his lifelong GOP ties to become an independent. By voting with the Democrats on Senate organizational matters, Jeffords single-handedly made Daschle the majority leader and gave veteran Democratic senators the committee gavels.

Then, just as Daschle was gaining his footing in his new post, the September 11 terrorist attacks dramatically changed the political landscape. Suddenly, Daschle shifted gears, struck a truly bipartisan tone, and helped to quickly move anti-terrorism legislation. The turnabout was underscored when Bush, following an address to a joint session of Congress shortly after the attacks, gave Daschle a well-publicized bear hug. It appeared that business as usual had been put into the deep freeze. Bush's public approval ratings went through the roof, and Daschle could not stress enough how much the Democrats stood with the president.

The next month, Daschle's office received a letter containing anthrax. Despite Daschle's prominence in Washington, the anthrax attack probably did more to make him a figure in the national consciousness than anything he had ever done politically.

But the bipartisan goodwill abruptly halted before year's end. When Daschle objected to Bush's proposed economic stimulus plan because of its hefty corporate tax breaks, the White House launched an effort to paint the majority leader as a villain.

In December, Vice President Dick Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press that Daschle, "unfortunately, has decided... to be more of an obstructionist." Karen P. Hughes, Bush's counselor, complained of a leadership "void" in the Senate. And a conservative group even began running ads in South Dakota featuring side-by-side pictures of Daschle and Saddam Hussein and suggesting that by blocking drilling in ANWR, the majority leader helped the Iraqi tyrant's regime. From that time forward, the acrimony has picked up. Daschle, however, has been less than successful in developing a consistent Democratic message.

On January 4, he kicked off the new year with a major economic address in which he said that the Bush tax cut "probably made the recession worse" and set the stage for "the most dramatic fiscal deterioration in our nation's history." Rather than helping to set the framework for the fall campaigns, Daschle's remark caused some angst among Democrats. After all, the tax cut had been backed by a dozen Senate Democrats, six of whom face tough re-election bids.

"How do you have, as one of your highest priorities, to re-elect the moderate Democrats from South Dakota, Montana, and Missouri on the one hand, then on the other, blame them for voting for a tax cut that he maintains has created this recession?" asked Zell Miller. "Hello?"

When pressed about whether he had undermined Democratic candidates, Daschle said in the interview: "I have got to speak for the vast majority of the members of our Caucus. I was criticized for not going far enough and criticized for going too far. So I guess I was just about right."

Soon after, Daschle and the Democrats pounced on the Enron bankruptcy as a way to galvanize their party's base. "I don't want to 'Enron' the people of the United States," Daschle told reporters in late January, referring to Republican efforts to partially privatize Social Security. "I don't want to see them holding the bag at the end of the day, just like Enron employees."

But as it became obvious that Democrats, too, had profited from Enron's campaign largesse, the message became muddy. Republicans noted that since 1979, contributions from Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen had gone to 48 Democratic senators.

Next, in late February, Daschle said that the jury was still out on the war in Afghanistan. "I don't think the success has been overstated, but the continued success, I think, is still somewhat in doubt," he said. "Clearly, we've got to find Mohammed Omar. We've got to find Osama bin Laden... or we will have failed."

After those comments provoked a furor, Daschle, while never backing away from the statements, clearly decided that the war would not be the issue to highlight going into Election Day. Instead, what has become obvious in recent weeks is that Daschle and the Democrats plan to rely on tried-and-true themes: protecting Social Security, cutting prescription drug costs, expanding Medicare, improving education, and protecting the environment.

It is a political menu that consists of standard fare, but Daschle is quite content with where he and his party are positioned. His decisions about his own future will surely be affected by the election results. He has repeatedly said that in 2004, he will either run for president, run for re-election, or walk away from politics. Yet Daschle obviously won't have much of a platform on which to run for higher office if, after less than two years in the majority, the Democrats are shoved back into the minority by the 2002 elections.

Whatever course he chooses, don't expect him to do much agonizing. Looking back to LBJ, Daschle said he appreciated the "comfort level that Lyndon Johnson had. I can identify with that. I've got an internal comfort that gives me a serenity that I feel very good about."

"Barf alert... What a puff piece."

Indeed. One can adequately describe Tiny Timmy in one well-edited paragraph. Whenever a piece like this emerges, you can pretty much tell from its length that it's going to be puff. The longer it runs, the puffier it gets.

I noticed, though before I got bored and stopped reading, that Dastardly said that he'd do "whatever it takes" to build on the Senate plurality "as long as it was appropriate and prudent." Interesting that he left out "legal."

Remember - to a Democrat, legality doesn't matter. As long as it's APPROPRIATE to do something, it's OK. "Legal" is for the other guy.

Personally, I'm looking forward to saying those three little words - Senate Minority Leader.

Michael

Wait and see how unruffled he is on November 6th, when he is, Lord willing, no longer plurality leader, and we begin the process of showing the voters of South Dakota the truth; that he is nothing more than a sham politician who is completely in the pocket of every liberal interest group in Washington.

Regards,
EV

""I have one focus, and that focus is exclusively on maintaining a majority of the Senate -- hopefully winning a couple of additional seats -- and I will do whatever it takes, within the confines of what is prudent and appropriate, to accomplish that goal," Daschle said in the interview with National Journal."

Attention RNC and South Dakota Republicans: Dashole admits that his one priority is Dashole as Majority Leader. Where's the country come? Where do the American People come? That's not Dashole's focus, his own power is.

" And the Democratic ranks appear to harbor no lingering ill will toward him, even when his moves have seemed abrupt."

Of course not.

DemocRATs only want power, they're not interested in the good of their country.

Very good article. I suggest our Republican legislators get busy reading Robert Caro's "Master of the Senate" and learn to outmaneuver Daschle. They have not done a very good job up until now. Maybe they will learn something from Lyndon Johnson too.

I like, "Demolition Daschole". He may indeed have zen-like serenity, but he has the political judgement of a baffoon.

By all means, lil Tommy should keep talking and smearing. Many a converted Republican seat will be our silent reprisal.

lil Tommy Plurality Math/ 1 + 1 = 0.

lil Tommy Patriotism/ McKinney smear + Hillary/Gephardt smear = unity

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