Senate Minority Leader Daschle Loses Seat

Nov 3, 4:15 AM EST

Senate Minority Leader Daschle Loses Seat

By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans tightened their grip on the Senate early Wednesday, dealing defeat to Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota and capturing a string of seats across the South.

Daschle fell to former Rep. John Thune, the first Senate party leader to lose a race for re-election in more than a half century.

Republicans were assured of 53 seats in the Senate that convenes in January, two more than they control in the current Congress.

Races in Alaska and Florida remained unsettled. Republicans led in both.
(more)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ELN_SENATE_RDP?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

However, I really dislike the way Daschle rolled over for the bush cowards team - In the end I think demcorats need to look at their party and it's currnet leradership. Something just isn't right, democrats need to get a backbone.

Since we are loosing seats it may as well be to a spineless Democrat so we can secure a fighting Democrat in 6 years......

for the DLC and the Bush administration...I am not all that sad to see him go. Maybe the Dems will replace him with someone whose spine is intact, somehow I doubt it. I have a feeling the Dems will be even MORE conciliatory to the pugs this time around.

Daschle had the control for a few pivotal months, and he squandered them.. I have pften wondered about poor Jim Jeffords.. He took a brave step, and got nothing in return (other than his self-respect)

Daschle will be "just fine".. he's a wealthy man, and the cost of living in SD is pretty easy to handle.. or he will be on K street raking in the bucks, and schmoozing with the ones who ousted him.. They are all members of the "Good-Ole-Boy" club..

More fun, more money, less headaches. Expect to see his sorry ass (or not see it, as the case may be since lobbyists don't really get "seen" by us common folk) in the halls of Congress just as often if not more often than while he was Leader.

I just can't find it in my heart to mourn this one.

Why? Many see Daschle as the ringleader of the USA ban on Canadian beef over this overblown Mad Cow scare.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

what is the story?

I live in SD
Got daily push poll calls from Repugs (remember this is the state where the drunk Republican Governor killed a motorcyclist and did no time)

Push polls asked how you felt about the death tax stealing family farms; if you were pro life and if you believed homosexuals should be allowed to marry - then reminded you that Daschle believed in all of those things.

But mostly it was because it is Native Americans that put Daschle in office (along with Tim Johnson) and kept him there. In 2002, after Daschle made all the rounds to the Reservations with Johnson and they put Johnson in the Senate, Daschle turned around and screwed the tribes on a treaty issue re water rights. (all our wells are dry now because of cities below us draining our acquifer. And treaties give the tribes ownership of the Missouri river.)

No time for a history lesson, but way back when when reservations were set up, the US govt. agreed to provide education in exchage for all the things they stole. But they tired of that so turned over education to Christian churches - hoping that Cristianity would help "civilize" the folks. Kids were taken from families and packed off to church run boarding schools where they were abused and forced to give up their culture and language - lots of brainwashing. Anywhere, where I am there is a big divide between traditional Lakotas and "Christian" Lakotas - and the only radio station is run by the Catholic church which broadcast anti-abortion and church BS all day long.

Anyway - the church stuff and the water issue cost Daschle the Native votes. Dems cannot win here with out Native American support.

I don't want the next one to be afraid of losing votes by supporting Democratic issues. Barbara Boxer?

I never understood how Daschle made it.. He was an anomaly, and was always vulnerable.. He bent to *'s whims so he would not lose his own state,.. That's NO way to be a leader..

It should have been Kennedy .

She's not very likeable in my opinion.

You're right though, leadership should always be from safe territory. If they set fire to a Republican on the floor of the Senate, they should gain 5 points in the polls. The way I see it, Biden, Schumer, Clinton, and Leahy are the best options.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I am upset that we lost a Senate seat to a jerk like Thune, but Daschle was totally useless as a Senate Leader. Everything Bush wanted he got with hardly a fight. We need a minority leader who knows the rules and will stand up for the people. And I surely don't mean a schmuck like Joe Loserman.

:grr:

It's sad when someone's best qualities as a person -- fairness, gentleness, honesty, willingness to compromise and listen to the concerns of others -- is used as a sign of weakness. I can still see Daschle pleading to the Senate floor "Please, Mr. President, don't politicize this war." He knew he had been trapped.

In the end, everybody liked him but nobody respected him very much. He would have done better to stop pandering to what he thought was the heartland values of his home state and just stood up for what he believed.

In the end, everybody liked him but nobody respected him very much.

That should be his political epitaph.

way, way, WAY too late. HIS job was not to GET trapped, but to LEAD the rest of the Dems away from a position of getting trapped.

Pleading with your oppressor hardly ever works, anyway. Stupid tactic, showing exactly the kind of weakness they love to exploit, LIVE to exploit.

Nice guy, but useless or worse as a Minority Leader with fascists at the helm.

Considering all the outrages we have endured the past 4 years plus the Clinton exposé, he should have been roaring like a lion. Instead he was meek as a lamb.

We need some thunder god to put fear into the repugnants. Someone who will say,"Let the President inform the American people why WT7 fell when no airplane hit that mighty edifice. The American people deserve to know."

America is divided. Progressives and secularists are being held hostage by our own homegrown version of the Taliban.

Better get used to it, because we're going to be in for a long, bumpy ride down the right wing road.

People are gonna choose the real thing - every time you run a "repuke lite" campaign!

Shame to lose a "poptential" vote in the Senate, but wrong man for wrong time.

From a bygone era of civility and gentlemen.

We need street fighters.

The repukes have proven over and over and over again - NICE DOESN'T WIN!

Hope the new guys fucks them really good.

Knowles has not yet conceded but he is so far behind it is all over but the crying.

In one of Daschles last television commercials he said....and I quote "I have supported president Bush, more often than not."

And that, my friends, just about says it all.

RC

When you compromise with a right winger, you get stabbed in the back every time. The fact that Daschle still didn't understand that was his downfall.

Will others in the party learn the lesson?

If Daschle would have fought Bush and tried to undermine him, he might have lost. By kissing his ass and giving in to Bush "more often than not" he did lose. Big mistake.

we knew and despised. The new Democratic party is being born today - and we will be at the core of it.

No revolution in outer things is possible without prior revolution in one's inner way of being. Whatever change you aspire to in your affairs must be preceded by a change in heart.

I-Ching, HG-49


Re-f***ing-joice

Poor guy...Jesus last night sucked for the whole country.

Conciliation has destroyed this country, and I hope all of you oblivious Clinton-lovers are listening to this.

By taking the party to the right, we've gained nothing and lost everything. Our new leader should be from a safe blue state and should fight like hell.

It is sickening to view the craven knee-dropping spectacle we've seen the last 4 years.

You think LBJ would have done it! Nope.
Mr. Sam? Not hardly. Sam Ervin? Uh-UH.

Until we elect real Dems, we're going to be shit on.

But didn't he help organize the no vote for Bushco's judicial appointments -- most of which have not been approved? Sounds pretty ballsy to me, though my recollection maybe wrong.

I thought he was a wanker because he pussied out in 2000. But I've heard great things about him blocking Bush's evil agenda. He's certainly not a yes-man for the president.

And he's one of the few liberal Democrats who cares about rural issues. He goes to visit each of his counties..by himself...without any aides like once a year. He's done that even after someone tried to kill him.

And the anthrax guy targeted Daschle precisely because Daschle and Leahy had the balls to take the threat of Anthrax terrorism seriously. Bush does not.

Dashle's was one of the best ones to lose. But it does put one more puke in the Senate, though. :(

I put all the blame on him for that. Who knows if that didn't pass we might have President Kerry right now. So.... I don't feel all that bad that he is gone. Other then the Repukes getting one more seat.

I dont mean to upset anyone- but I never cared for him.