Also In This Issue Related stories available to subscribers only: Waiting In The Wings: Who Would Replace Daschle? Related Resources On NationalJournal.com Campaign Tipsheet: South Dakota Senate · Poll Track: South Dakota Senate · Almanac Profile: Sen. Tom Daschle · 2002 Campaign Tipsheet: John Thune's Narrow Loss Additional Information On The Web Tom Daschle's Senate Web site · Tom Daschle's Re-election Web site · John Thune's Campaign Website · Money Raised and Spent in South Dakota's Senate Race · Role of Senate Majority and Minority Leaders

By Kirk Victor, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Oct. 15, 2004

RAPID CITY, S.D. -- On a beautiful recent fall evening in this city of about 60,000, a "population center" in a state of vast acreage and few people, about 200 residents filed into an elementary school. They were eagerly looking forward to spending time with South Dakota's best-known politician, Tom Daschle.

Back in Washington, Daschle is seen as a mega-force. Democrats credit the 56-year-old Senate minority leader with stoutly maintaining the last line of defense for their party at a time when the GOP controls all levers of the federal government. Republicans fiercely denounce him as an obstructionist who stands in the way of their agenda.

But here in South Dakota, a state whose 765,000 residents are outnumbered by those in the city of Indianapolis, he is simply known as Tom. Home-state fans and critics alike call him earnest, hardworking, a bit intense, the kind of guy who would be anybody's favorite son-in-law. South Dakotans expect to see their leaders up close, to engage them, and to get answers to their questions. And when Daschle is here, he is less interested in talking up issues that cause superheated rhetoric in Washington -- flag desecration, same-sex marriage, or abortion, for example -- than he is in emphasizing his power to bring home the bacon.

As he seeks a fourth Senate term, Daschle is running a campaign that reflects his methodical approach. He is trying to leave as little to chance as possible. For well over a year, he has run a relentless barrage of campaign ads highlighting various goodies that he has delivered to South Dakota, to the tune of more than $269 million for 90-plus projects in the past fiscal year alone, according to his campaign.

Along the walk leading to the brand-new Valley View Elementary School, which is flanked by the majestic Black Hills, no banners or other partisan signs are displayed. Steve Hildebrand, Daschle's savvy campaign manager, is credited with the idea of organizing such community gatherings to try to attract squishy Republicans and others who may be on the fence about the race. Big campaign displays would be off-putting, Hildebrand knows, since he grew up here and managed Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson's razor-thin 524-vote victory two years ago.

Daschle's campaign is, by necessity, geared to attract undecided voters. Without the support of undecideds, or "persuadables," and without a chunk of the Republican vote, Daschle cannot win. South Dakota's voter-registration rolls reveal an 11 percentage-point GOP advantage, and many registered independents lean Republican. The minority leader's task is further complicated because President Bush is expected to handily defeat Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry at the top of the ticket in this generally conservative state.

Not only that, Daschle's Republican opponent, former Rep. John Thune, has plenty of charm and affability to go with his movie-star good looks. He has the tall, lean build of a basketball player -- which he was, for his high school team in Murdo, a town of about 600 west of the Missouri River -- and folks in both parties invariably refer to him as a "nice guy." And Thune is very well known in these parts. He was the state's lone congressman from 1996 to 2002, and then he lost that nail-biter Senate contest against Johnson two years ago. So the former congressman knows plenty about running statewide campaigns.

To top it off, the national GOP establishment is salivating at the prospect of knocking off Daschle, the man they often deride as "the obstructionist-in-chief." A standard line from Sen. George Allen, R-Va., the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, tells it all: "When John Thune wins in South Dakota, that's like picking up three seats in itself."

Although you won't hear Daschle or his staff describe the race in such stark terms, he is in a pitched battle for his political survival. This is the senator's toughest challenge since he first won election to the Senate in 1986 by defeating Republican Sen. James Abdnor by about 10,000 votes, 52 percent to 48 percent.

Daschle is clearly pulling out all the stops. His broadcast ad blitz alone has been so massive that by July, he had aired more such commercials than some candidates will put up during their entire campaign, according to an analysis by The Cook Political Report. Thune, by contrast, did not even start to air commercials until July.

Dick Wadhams, Thune's tenacious campaign manager who is credited with helping Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., win an uphill re-election bid in 2002, chortled that despite Daschle's heavy spending, the race remains within the margin of error in statewide polling. Wadhams said that money will not be decisive, because both sides have the funds to make their cases. But he thinks that Daschle blundered in starting to advertise so early, inundating the state's voters, who already were fatigued from the similar, relentless barrage just two years ago in the Johnson-Thune Senate race.

"Daschle went on TV in July of 2003, and he had a vacuum for an entire year. We didn't go on until July of this year," Wadhams said. "Despite such heavy television, radio, mail, and newspaper ads, the race didn't change. One can only conclude that there is a resistance to the minority leader being re-elected."

Hildebrand dismissed that view. "We have been on the air for a year and a half, and we are ahead," he countered. "The voters are not that fatigued."

As each side throws elbows, there is no doubt that the Daschle-Thune contest is the marquee Senate race this year. In the end, a few thousand votes will probably make the difference. That a prominent leader is in such an all-out struggle to keep his job is significant. After all, the last time a top Senate leader lost a re-election bid was more than 50 years ago, in 1952, when Senate Majority Leader Ernest McFarland, D-Ariz., was defeated by Republican Barry Goldwater.

A Big Stick?
Daschle's main campaign theme can be summed up in one word: CLOUT. As in: He has it, and John Thune doesn't. The minority leader often points out the dividends that he has produced for his state, ranging from delivering a farm bill two years ago that gave corn producers a higher return on their crops, to preventing the base-closure commission from shutting down Ellsworth Air Force Base.

At the same time, Daschle argues that Thune is so much the party-line politician and so beholden to Bush that he failed to stand up for South Dakota's interests two years ago when the state needed drought relief. During Thune's agonizingly close Senate race against Johnson in 2002, Bush traveled to the state and famously -- or infamously -- expressed sympathy for the ranchers' plight. But he left without offering the federal relief that South Dakotans felt was warranted. Thune's failure to persuade Bush to provide the assistance may have made the difference in the contest's outcome.

"The president gave a great speech on homeland security, but that got lost in the shuffle, as it was covered by the media [that] he didn't offer immediate drought assistance," Thune recalled during a recent interview in his campaign headquarters in Sioux Falls. "It was a factor, but not the only factor."

Daschle uses the episode to buttress his central argument in this year's race. As the Democratic leader traveled recently between campaign stops, he summarized his case for re-election: "For South Dakota, there are two decisions. Do we want a leader or a follower? And do we want to be at the front of the line, as we are right now, or do we want to be at the back of the line?"

In fact, this Senate race is not focused on the Iraq war or on other issues that have dominated the presidential contest. Instead, it is largely a referendum on Daschle, and especially whether he is an effective leader who delivers for the state. Although Thune does not shy away from talking about social issues -- including his opposition to abortion and his support for a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration -- that pitch is largely designed to fire up his conservative base supporters. In the end, both candidates recognize that the narrow band of undecided South Dakota voters will ultimately cast their ballots based on their view of Daschle's performance.

Responding to those dynamics, Thune contends that Daschle caters to the left-leaning Senate Democratic Caucus. The youthful, 43-year-old former lawmaker charges that Daschle no longer represents "South Dakota values" and is out of step with the state. "He's not the same guy who put his suitcase in his station wagon and drove his family to Congress back in 1978," Thune said. "He now is an inside-Washington, D.C., guy who lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion. The broader question is, Who is more in touch with South Dakota?"

Those kinds of shots have a familiar ring. In recent years, South Dakota has twice retired incumbent senators, Democrat George McGovern in 1980 and Republican Larry Pressler in 1996, in part because they were viewed as having become too enamored with Washington and too distant from their roots in this populist state.

To respond to Daschle's argument that his clout is an invaluable asset, Thune says that any senator "worth his salt" will win his fair share of federal dollars for South Dakota. "The notion that, somehow, if I am elected to the Senate that the federal spigot is just going to dry up -- you'd have to be crazy" to buy that, Thune said. "When you are a senator, you can literally shut the place down. One person has enormous power in the Senate."

Daschle brushes aside such claims. "That is almost laughable," he responded. "I remember how I felt as a freshman, wanting so much just to be able to be in the room, much less at the table. Well, now it is my table. That gives me a tremendous opportunity to do the things that we have been able to do.... We could spend the rest of the time [in this interview] just talking about the difference between being a leader and being a freshman. To make that argument is actually laughable."

Home Delivery
So how has the soft-spoken Daschle survived for more than 25 years in South Dakota's difficult political terrain? He got a good taste of how tough the landscape is for Democrats early in his political career, when he prevailed by just 139 votes in a battle for a House seat in 1978.

Since then, Daschle has never lost sight of the need to be attentive to the state. He returns from Washington often, making informal stops along South Dakota's vast stretches, starting in the east in Sioux Falls, and moving west to Rapid City. The two areas, described as East River and West River, are divided by the Missouri River and are so distinct that they might as well be separate states. They are even in different time zones.

West River is predominantly Republican, with a libertarian bent, and is populated largely by ranchers whose sports preferences run to the Denver Broncos and the Colorado Rockies. East River is more farm country and leans Democratic, though at the conservative end of the spectrum. Its residents root for the Minnesota Twins and the Vikings.

For years, Daschle has spent every August recess traveling around in his 1971 Pontiac Ventura, stopping in all 66 counties in this largely empty state that boasts fewer than 10 persons per square mile. The senator wrote in his 2003 book, "Like No Other Time," that he finally had to retire the old car when its odometer hit 260,000 miles, but his statewide tours continue. These days Daschle can no longer travel quite so inconspicuously. Because of the terrorist attacks in 2001 and the anthrax-laced letter sent to his Senate office that year, he is now accompanied by a security detail.

Tonight's event at Valley View Elementary, like his other stops around the state in August, is designed to satisfy any voter's appetite for chatting up the Senate leader. Daschle, wearing an open shirt and sports coat, is greeted with cheers as he enters the back of the school gymnasium. Volunteers have set up tables and prepared the fare for the evening -- sloppy joes.

As his wife, Linda, makes clear in her introductory remarks, the senator will remain until everyone has had a chance to speak with him about whatever is on their minds. Although she is a powerful Washington lobbyist for aviation interests and was formerly a top official at the Federal Aviation Administration, Linda Daschle wears none of that on her sleeve. Her tone is conversational, and her mission quickly becomes obvious: to try to show voters that her husband remains very much one of them, not the person caricatured in negative ads that portray him as a two-faced politician who says one thing in South Dakota and another in Washington.

"We have seen ... outside special-interest groups with millions of dollars come to this state to tell you that the man that you have voted for for 25 years is somehow not the man that you thought he was," Linda Daschle says. "Well, I will tell you one thing about Tom Daschle, and that is, every step of the way, he has never lost faith in knowing that you know the difference between the truth and what is not right.

"For seven times, you have elected Tom Daschle to be your representative in Washington, D.C.," she continues, as the crowd applauds. "He hasn't stood in the back of the line; he hasn't stood on the sidelines. He has always fought to go to the front of the line for South Dakota."

When Linda Daschle hands the microphone off to her husband, he begins with a joke that underscores that he knows that one's status in Washington doesn't necessarily cut much mustard with South Dakotans. He mentions a recent trip to an assisted-living facility where he greeted several elderly gentlemen. Daschle asked if they knew who he was, and one of them piped up, "No, but if you go to the front desk, they can probably tell you."

The audience chuckles. "You get grounded when you come home," Daschle says, and he proceeds to talk about the "middle-class squeeze." He delivers this message all over the state, and it's the closest he comes to giving a stump speech. It focuses on the difficulties that families face as a result of higher health care costs, the outsourcing of jobs, and rising college tuition. The only reference to Iraq is when Daschle expresses concern that as the United States spends more money there, we are not investing enough at home.

The not-so-subtle point is that Daschle is best positioned to help folks deal with these hardships by fighting for legislation allowing the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, for example, or boosting the state's all-important ethanol industry. His comments hit home. Several registered Republicans are impressed.

Doug Christensen, who's been a journeyman electrician at Black Hills Power in Rapid City for 25 years and just turned 50, said that Daschle "was right on," and added, "After hearing this speech tonight, he deserves my vote." Thune, Christensen said, "should have stayed in the House of Representatives and proven himself," and he noted, "He could have done more for South Dakota."

A 46-year-old independent trucker, who didn't want his name used, said that as he gets older, he is more concerned about health care. "I was promised health care -- after serving in the Navy -- and they are now back-stepping," he said. "I have been hearing a lot of things against [Daschle]. I wanted to come see for myself." The trucker voiced no doubt that he will vote for Bush, but added that he reacted "real well" to Daschle's comments. He said he is troubled by the negative tone of the anti-Daschle ads, and he liked how "Daschle's wife hit on that -- Daschle is not throwing mud at Thune."

Such reactions are not uncommon, according to Lisa Richardson, the executive director of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association. Although she was not at the community meeting in Rapid City, Richardson has spent plenty of time with both candidates. As a Republican who worked for then-Sen. Pressler, the 39-year-old South Dakotan is torn this year. Richardson is a Bush fan, but she doesn't hesitate to praise Daschle's work on the 2002 farm bill.

"This is a hard one -- I haven't made my mind up," Richardson said. " Tom Daschle has done good things for our organization.... But philosophically, he is on the other side of so many things that South Dakotans value -- on gay rights and marriage ... and South Dakotans hate taxes. I would guess he would be on the other side." She added, "John Thune is an incredible candidate as well. He has a history with this organization and has been very good."

Richardson then recounted a story to illuminate Daschle's people skills. During the Senate debate on gay marriage in July, she and eight corn growers were in Daschle's Capitol office. About a dozen Democratic senators were also there, strategizing on the upcoming vote. Amid this high-pressure situation, Daschle kept his colleagues waiting as he met with the corn growers. "To me, that is amazing," Richardson said. "Now the corn growers think that is pretty normal.... There were 12 senators in his office. We have eight farmers over here, and he is with us. So he does pay attention to things that matter back home."

Richardson added, "Nobody is as good a politician as Tom Daschle -- nobody."

High Fives
While Daschle is quite effective in the art of retail politics, Thune also connects easily with voters. A few weeks before Election Day, he jogged along with a high school homecoming parade in Harrisburg, a tiny town not far from Sioux Falls that has a couple of bars and a convenience store, but not much else -- not even a stoplight.

On this sunny Friday afternoon, the town has all but shut down to give folks an opportunity to cheer as floats and convertibles filled with members of the homecoming court and other high school students slowly move down the street. Thune high-fives children and stops to chat briefly with adults along the way. Cameras pop out, and he poses with residents as he asks about their children. There is no hard sell, just an effortless familiarity between the candidate and the voters. His easy-going style is also evident throughout the next day, as he makes three stops at women-owned businesses, introducing himself to the small knots of voters he bumps into.

Thune's supporters seem especially ardent. They often dismiss Daschle as a politician who has lost touch with his roots. One of Thune's most enthusiastic backers, Jessie Schmidt, 41, a mother of two, is emphatic that Daschle is not the proponent of small business that he claims to be.

Schmidt, who recently sold her commercial-goods business to her brother, is now on the steering committee of Women for Thune, about a dozen women who are trying to drum up support for the Republican candidate. Their effort is important because, according to a late-September poll sponsored by the Argus Leader and KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, Daschle has a 55 percent to 41 percent advantage among women.

Schmidt contended that Daschle isn't much of a South Dakotan. "The last day Tom represented us was the day he became Senate majority leader -- that was the day he became a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and quit being the mouthpiece for South Dakota. That hasn't changed since he became minority leader," Schmidt said.

"Tom doesn't live here. His house in South Dakota is his mother's house in Aberdeen," she added. "Tom lives in a beautiful house in Washington, but he comes back here. This year, he is driving that old Suburban. In the past, he has driven that crappy old Nova [sic] around South Dakota and said he is an 'everyman.' I'm telling you, he is not."

Pam Taylor Jansa, whose family owns several convenience stores and other businesses in Sioux Falls, was equally adamant. Speaking from a store that her father-in-law started in 1935, Jansa said that Thune is "a better friend of small businesses than Tom Daschle is." She recited Daschle's low rating from the National Federation of Independent Business, about 10 or 12 percent, compared with Thune's 100 percent grade.

Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., widow of the late Sonny Bono, had traveled to South Dakota to join the tour of women-owned businesses. She lauded Thune, speaking of the great impression he made on her and other lawmakers during his tenure in the House, and noted that he was president of his freshman class. "It takes a lot for me to truly like someone and like their character, and to get out and say to people, 'This is a good person, you should back him,' " Bono said.

Though it is obvious that Thune has many devoted supporters, it is not so clear why he would jump back into politics so soon after his heartbreaking loss just two years ago, especially knowing that taking on Daschle would be a bloody battle. When pressed, Thune, whose deep Christian beliefs appeal to many voters here, replied that the timing was right. "You get a time and a window in life where you have your chance," he said. "I could have sat around and waited another 10 years for an open seat, and it probably would have been a lot easier, but this is an opportunity to put what I believe on the line -- to make a difference for my state and my country."

In his six years on Capitol Hill, Thune compiled a very conservative voting record. He pointed out that as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he succeeded in getting millions of dollars of highway assistance for the state -- "the highest level that had ever been secured by anybody in the delegation in the House."

In critiquing his opponent's record, Thune took particular exception to Daschle's failure in 2003 to "lift a finger to get the votes on the energy bill, which was the marquee issue for the ethanol industry here." Thune called that failure a "catalyst" in his decision to run. "If you are a leader, you deliver the votes, especially on something that important," he said. "That was the culmination of years of work, and it was a consensus position. And Daschle says, 'I fought for it.' Yeah, he fought for it -- he got 13 [Democratic] votes."

Daschle responded that the Senate passed bipartisan energy legislation when he was majority leader in 2002, with 88 votes. But last November, the Senate rejected the energy bill conference report after Republicans inserted numerous special-interest provisions. "We took a perfectly good bill, got an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, and they created a situation where the only option was to fail," Daschle said. "They control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and responsibility falls entirely in their lap. They know that, and they are very defensive about it."

At the same time, Daschle's campaign points to some recent victories that the senator helped to engineer for South Dakota before the Senate recessed for the election. They say he was instrumental in winning $2.9 billion in drought relief, a chunk of which will go to the state's ranchers, and in securing in the corporate tax bill an extension of an ethanol tax credit and a provision allowing residents of South Dakota and six other states to deduct sales taxes on their federal tax returns.

But the Thune campaign focuses on the failure to win passage of the energy bill. "Daschle wants it both ways: This is Mr. Clout; this is Mr. Powerful. If he was so full of clout and power, why doesn't he get this done?" Wadhams said. "Instead, he is crying 'victim.' ... He goes back and forth from Mr. Powerful to Mr. Victim so easily -- almost in the same sentence, when he talks."

Reservations About Republicans
Johnson's victory in South Dakota's 2002 Senate race was finally assured when the votes on several Indian reservations were posted. He got more than 90 percent of the approximately 13,000 Native American votes cast, according to most estimates. This year, Thune acknowledges that Republicans have an uphill battle on South Dakota's reservations, and he is reaching out to Native Americans.

Thune ticks off the problems that Native Americans face -- poverty, unemployment, poor health care, and much higher mortality rates than elsewhere in the country -- and he claims that that record is an indictment of Daschle. "Twenty-six years of Tom Daschle hasn't done anything to change that," he said. "The promise of more federal money has not done anything to solve the underlying problems." Thune added, "Making the tribes more dependent upon this sort of paternalistic entity of the federal government doesn't do anything to solve the problems. What must happen is to change the culture from one of dependence to one of empowerment."

When asked about the festering problems among Native American populations, Daschle recited various projects that he has championed, including constructing large water systems for reservations, boosting funds for tribal colleges, and co-sponsoring the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which produced $17 billion in economic development nationwide this year. "Have we succeeded on everything I have tried?" Daschle asked rhetorically. "Absolutely not. But I would look to the opposition, the Reagan administration, the first Bush administration, and this administration, as the reason that we have not done nearly enough."

Charles Colombe, president of the South Dakota Rosebud Sioux tribe, said in an interview that, as an independent, he has contributed to the GOP, and he gave money to Thune several years ago. But these days, Colombe backs Daschle. "When I look at this Senate race, a couple of things come to mind: No. 1, Who can do the most for South Dakota and Indian reservations? The second thing is, Who has a national presence to represent South Dakota? Daschle comes out an overwhelming victor in both areas.

"He has the leadership position in the Senate as minority leader," Colombe continued. "Starting over at the bottom of that ladder wouldn't seem very smart to me."

Colombe's chief of staff, Robert Moore, a registered Democrat, was more blunt. "Thune has been absent in Indian country, when there have been major opportunities for him to really reach out to tribes," Moore said. When informed that Thune had attended several powwows recently, Moore said he was glad but added that Daschle has made a deeper commitment. "Daschle has developed personal relationships with people in Indian country -- on reservations -- not just with leadership," he said.

Likewise, Dan Pfeiffer, Daschle's deputy campaign manager, claimed that Thune's overtures are too little, too late. "You can't just show up at a couple of powwows. This is a hard community to turn out," Pfeiffer said. "People don't even have a clue of who John Thune is, in most cases, because he is a Republican and he spent no time there in six years. We have offices on all nine reservations, with local staff from the community. For six to nine months, they have been going door to door, working the community, registering voters, and building a get-out-the-vote effort."

Jason Glodt, the executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party, countered that Thune's effort to reach out to Native Americans is the biggest ever by a Republican. He said that Thune also has offices on the reservations, although they are not as visible as Daschle's because of their location. "We learned that Republicans had not shown up on the reservations prior to 2002, and Democrats were allowed to get their unfiltered message out," Glodt said. "We have a message that resonates -- a belief in limited government and that the solution to problems is not more federal spending."

Glodt also said that many Native Americans share Thune's anti-abortion views. "We know change won't come overnight, but we are surprised at how fast we have been building relationships," he concluded. And Wadhams noted that that extra effort can provide just the margin that Thune will need to prevail in a close race. "All we have to do is slightly better on the reservations" than in 2002, he said.

Still, Pfeiffer insisted that Daschle's leadership position is a trump card. "Charles Colombe can pick up the phone and have access to the minority leader of the Senate," he said. "Every lobbyist in Gucci shoes would give their right arm to have that access."

Forget Civility
Although both candidates recognize that South Dakota prides itself on civility, this campaign has had moments that have left people shaking their heads. The acrid atmospherics have been further fueled by the involvement of Washington interest groups, some of which have made knocking off Daschle their top priority.

This contest is so important, said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, because "Daschle has been so central to organizing the Democrats' resistance to the Republican agenda. He is a Ted Kennedy political operative in Washington and runs like he was Ronald Reagan's twin brother in the state.

"Beating Daschle is like Strom Thurmond switching parties [to become a Republican] in the South," Norquist added. Just as Thurmond made it acceptable for Southerners to vote Republican, he said, defeating Daschle will finally make it clear in the Dakotas that Democrats simply do not represent their values. The people of those two states agree with their four Democratic senators about nothing, Norquist contended. "Taxes? No. Foreign policy? No. Traditional values? No. Labor issues and tort reform? No. But [the Democratic candidates] go out there every six years and just lie to people about their position."

The Republican establishment's determination to defeat Daschle was especially evident in May, when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., broke Senate precedent by traveling to South Dakota to campaign for Thune, whom he had encouraged to jump into the race against Johnson two years ago. Rarely, if ever, has one Senate leader stepped out in such fashion.

The intensity of the race continues to grow. For example, Thune blistered Daschle during a debate last month on NBC's "Meet the Press" for having said, just two days before U.S. troops went into Iraq, that Bush "failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war." Thune declared, "What [Daschle's position] does is emboldens our enemies and undermines the morale of our troops." Daschle, in an emotional rejoinder, said: "John's attacks on me, where I come from, would earn a trip to the woodshed. He knows that's wrong. His effort to demonize me won't work in South Dakota."

When later asked about the exchange, Thune referred to it as "a little meltdown," and added, "I don't know how you can project leadership and strength and, at the same time, run for tall cover any time anybody challenges your record." Some Republicans questioned whether Daschle's reaction was contrived, but Thune said, "I'm not going to cast aspersions on his motivations but ... I don't know how, after that whole deal was over, he turns around and gives this big smile and shakes my hand.... How do you go from almost weeping on television, on the show, to [saying] 'Great debate'?"

In a contest that is so close, voters' perceptions of such moments could be decisive. A poll sponsored by the Argus Leader and KELO-TV about a week after the debate showed that Thune's unfavorable score jumped from 23 percent in May to 34 percent in September, while Daschle's negatives also rose, from 33 percent to 37 percent, in that period.

At the same time, Daschle sparked controversy by running an ad that includes a passing image of Bush embracing him in 2001, after the president addressed Congress following the terrorist attacks. Thune sees that move as especially disingenuous, given that Daschle has frequently used parliamentary tactics to stymie Bush's legislative proposals. Thune said the image suggests a spirit of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill that simply does not exist. "I don't know how you can seize that moment and embrace this president -- and then literally poke him in the eye every single day, every chance you get," he said. "It was a very cynical use of what might be described as a single bipartisan moment."

Not surprisingly, Daschle emphatically disagreed. "That is totally erroneous," he said. "We have had many, many times where the president and I have worked together ... 9/11 was a very important moment when the country needed to see its leaders pull together and forget politics."

No one can say yet whether voters see Daschle's ad as cynical or exploitative, or think that Thune went too far in questioning whether Daschle emboldened the enemy. The only sure bet, heading into Election Day, is that none of the other 33 Senate races this year will be watched more closely than the one in South Dakota.

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