This page is a class assignment at Davidson College. See bottom
Thune and Daschle: The End
Why did Thune win?
John Thune defeated Tom Daschle in the South Dakota Senate race for two reasons. First, the election was less a referendum on either candidate's competency, than a simple judgment of Daschle's ideological compatibility with the State. Commentators from Dick Wadhams, Thune's campaign manager (Lauck, The Senate), to former Speaker of the House Tom Foley (Daly, Former), pointed to Daschle’s apparent constituent disconnect. Sen. George Allen, summed up his understanding of the outcome: “He had the values of Capitol Hill, rather than the Black Hills [a “mountainous region of southwest South Dakota” (Lauck, Allen).
The sense that Daschle is out of touch with constituents comes from his position on abortion, guns, and the war in Iraq. Thune's positions favored him heavily (Lauck, How). In addition, news of Daschle’s “homestead exemption” for a mansion in Washington, D.C., undermined Daschle's claims that he had remained true to his roots (Gannon).
The second reason for Thune’s win are blogs. Countless media outlets and individuals have given credit to blogs for breaking and analyzing news about the race--always to Daschle’s detriment (Lauck, 11/4-on).
A weak argument for why Thune won is that he utilized negative ads of questionable veracity (Harlan). However, Thune seems to have won the debates, an important indication to voters of whom contains the most substance (Woster). The contrast between Thune and Daschle, and between Daschle and the constituents, overshadows any other explanation for Thune’s win.
Did Thune change to win?
I have seen no evidence to suggest that Thune differs substantially from his days in Congress. For example, he has remained consistently anti-gun control since his first term in Congress (John). He is, and always has been, with the majority of South Dakota’s voters on hot-button issues. Daschle never attacked him during the campaign for inconsistency.
Did Daschle change to win?
The Thune campaign charged Daschle with flip-flopping on several issues (Dueling). It does seem that at least on one issue—abortion, Daschle was trying to remake his image. As van Beek notes, Daschle seems to have been trying to moderate, or even obliterate, the pro-abortion image that he cultivated as recently as 2002 (van Beek, Daschle). Even one of Sen. John Kerry’s advisers said as much, when defending an apparent inconsistency of Daschle’s position on the war. He confessed, “Tom Daschle is in a close race in South Dakota. And there are certain things that he has to say during that race” (van Beek, Kerry).
Daschle's ideological inconsistency with South Dakota voters and his apparent Washington residency contributed most to his loss of constituent trust.
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Created Dec. 6, 2004. Updated Dec. 6, 2004