06-01-2002

CONGRESS: 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."


Ruffling Feathers


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."


Lessons From Lyndon


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."


Prairie Populist


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."


Back to Business


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 Demo- crats 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."


Kirk Victor

National Journal