Added Nov. 5

Daschle barnstorms key states trying to hold Senate majority

By MIKE MADDEN
Gannett News Service

ST. LOUIS — Tom Daschle, apparently, speaks too slowly for high-tech politics.

The Senate's top Democrat had stopped by a union office last weekend to record a phone message so computers can call registered Democrats on Election Day to remind them to vote. But he couldn't read the script in less than 25 seconds, and aides worried that voters might hang up if he talked longer than that. Only a hasty rewrite and some computer tricks helped get things right before he could speed off to a downtown rally for endangered Missouri Sen. Jean Carnahan.

Taping pre-recorded phone messages and boosting Democratic candidates are the kind of things Daschle has been doing a lot of lately. For months, the South Dakotan has been barnstorming the country, stumping for Democrats in the handful of states that will determine whether the party holds its majority in the Senate next year. Until Congress left Washington barely three weeks before the Nov. 5 election, Daschle had been jamming his trips into weekends, balancing the demands of running the Senate with his duties as the most powerful elected Democrat in the country.

Tuesday's election could be a turning point for Daschle even though he is not on the ballot in South Dakota. A possible candidate for president in 2004, Daschle is expected to make up his mind about a White House run before the end of the year, and he will surely weigh the balance of power in the Senate as he decides.

The strength of Tuesday's vote could also reflect on how well Daschle and other party leaders succeeded in making the election a referendum on Bush's economic policies and how much their strategy helped them overcome the president's post-Sept. 11 popularity.

Aides to candidates he has appeared with said Daschle helps galvanize supporters and draw donors to fund-raising events. In St. Louis, for instance, about 500 people paid $100 each at a Carnahan fund-raiser with Daschle, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., and actor Bradley Whitford, who plays presidential aide Josh Lyman on NBC's "The West Wing." A cluster of admirers gathered around Daschle, many giving condolences on the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and the majority leader seemed to attract more attention after the event than Whitford did.

But Daschle said he wasn't sure how much of an effect he has when he campaigns, besides stirring up the base of hardcore voters the party needs to go to the polls.

"I think it's pretty minimal, actually," he said. "It may be just an opportunity to see somebody (people) have seen on television. Candidates win these races on their own."

Still, on the stump, he showed more flash and fire than he often does in Washington, telling black supporters at a get-out-the-vote rally that the close Missouri Senate race "could be decided by the people in this parking lot on this afternoon" and stirring the crowd at the early evening fund-raiser into a frenzy.

"This election is about more than just who's up and who's down," he said, saying the very future of the nation was at stake. "Everything you really need to know about politics, you learned when you started driving a car. You want to go forward, you put it in D. You want to go backward, you put it in R. We're going to take this thing forward!"

Keeping control of the Senate will help keep Republican proposals from becoming law, Daschle said, proudly ticking off a list of bills the House passed that the Senate held up - drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge, major tax cuts for big business, relaxed standards for arsenic in drinking water. The tactic is a reversal of the Republican refrain that Senate Democrats are obstructing important priorities.

Between stops, he spent nearly every free minute on the phone, calling party officials and potential donors to shore up Democratic campaign accounts in the waning days before the election.

If Daschle does run for president, Gephardt - the top Democrat on the House side of Capitol Hill - would be a formidable rival. The two men are close, and Daschle said he doesn't think anything Gephardt has done as leader would be a target of attacks in a presidential primary.

Gephardt, meanwhile, heaped lavish praise on Daschle at the Carnahan fund-raiser.
"There's not a finer leader that any party has ever had in the United States Senate or any legislative body in the world," Gephardt said.

This particular campaign swing was difficult for Daschle. Wellstone had died just a day before, and Daschle began his trip in Minnesota with a wrenching visit to the Wellstone headquarters, before moving on to Missouri and Iowa. Though Daschle is typically reserved, it was clear he was still shocked and saddened as he talked about the man he called "the soul of the Senate."

In the end, though, he and other Democrats said fighting even harder for the party's values was the best way to honor Wellstone's memory.
"We know that we're the only thing standing between what the far right wing proposes and what becomes law, and we take our responsibility seriously," he said. "There's a whole lot more we can do."