Tom Daschle's Political Charade

by Christopher G. Adamo

Conservative pundits are reeling with amazement at Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D.-SD), who is running an ad in his home state portraying him in an embrace with President Bush. The actual incident took place on September 20, 2001, immediately after the President had addressed a joint session of Congress, following the attacks of 9-11.

Daschle's sudden affinity for the President represents a switch on the order of John Kerry's "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," and is thus completely consistent with election-year tap-dances by other Democrats. Outside of a few districts in New York and California, liberal Democrats are acutely aware that they cannot win by campaigning as liberal Democrats. They must create a more palatable facade for their constituents. In truth, such a strategy displays complete contempt for the voters, relying as it does on their gullibility to carry candidates past Election Day.

Consider, as a prime example, Daschle's relationship with the people of South Dakota. Their deep respect for the Constitution, as well as the morality that they uphold individually, confirms this midwestern state to be undeniably conservative.

This past February, the South Dakota legislature passed a measure outlawing abortion, and not by a narrow margin. In the State House, it carried by 54 to 14, and initially passed in the Senate 18 to 15, though later defeated there. In this age of MTV, gay "marriage," and all the other hallmarks of the counterculture, the South Dakota legislature's actions indicated a widespread consensus of conservatism, reaching virtually every corner of the state.

Tom Daschle, now in the midst of his own re-election campaign, must appeal to a voting base that is vastly different from his own ultra-liberal ideology. In the past, he has been successful in accomplishing this through a series of political "sleights of hand."

For example, while bowing to the wishes of environmental extremists elsewhere in the nation, who have done enormous damage to the forests by their refusal to allow selective cutting in order to curtail the danger of wildfires, Daschle nonetheless managed to exempt South Dakota from such outrageous regulations. In so doing, he ensured his own immunity from the inevitable backlash that would descend upon him in the wake of major forest fires within the boundaries of his state.

Likewise, by shamelessly displaying the picture of himself and Bush, he promotes the notion that he has been supportive of the President in his efforts to protect the country from further terrorist attacks. However, in neither case can he make these claims with any degree of honesty.

During Senate debate on partial-birth abortion, Daschle sounded positively pro-life. Yet he is among those who have worked diligently to prevent Bush's pro-constitution judicial nominees from getting an up or down confirmation vote. Thus he ensures that courts will be stacked with activist judges who, in service to the morally bankrupt left, continue to overturn every basic statement of human rights such as South Dakota's proposed abortion ban.

From the moment the 2000election results were confirmed, Daschle sought obsessively to thwart every effort of President Bush to do his job. And it was Daschle who, by stalling the confirmation of George Bush's cabinet nominees, prevented the new administration from getting up to speed prior to 9-11.

It was Daschle who led the liberal opposition to drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. By now, that region could be producing oil and alleviating high gasoline prices and their resulting hardship to rural and agricultural communities of South Dakota as well as all of the United States.

On Election Day, South Dakota voters should consider the damage Tom Daschle has done to the entire nation in the name of partisan politics, and come to grips with the fact that liberal degradation of America will not remain forever beyond the boundaries of their state. Nor will they or their posterity reside indefinitely within their heartland haven. So although the next massive terror attack is not likely to occur in Rapid City or Sioux Falls, they are ultimately no less a target of the terrorists who seek to inflict harm on American soil.

If Tom Daschle can be made to pay the ultimate political price for his treachery by his removal from office, other liberal politicians are sure to take notice. No other state race holds such a potential to set America back on a course of restoring its moral and constitutional roots.

Growing up during the turbulent decades of the ‘60's and ‘70's, Christopher  Adamo saw, to his dismay, the nation's moral foundations being destroyed  before his very eyes. But even then he was a staunch Conservative at heart,  and rejected outright the tenets of America's counterculture revolution.

 After a hitch in the Air Force, where he specialized in airborne  electro- optical systems, he pursued a career in the field of aerospace,  working for major defense contractors in California, Florida, and Colorado. But his career plans abruptly changed during the industry-wide downsizing that followed the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Presently he is working in the field of industrial instrumentation in the state of Wyoming. Concurrently, he has become involved in that state's political process, attending state GOP conventions as a delegate, and serving as a member of the Wyoming Republican Central Committee. He has also aided in the candidacies of local legislators and state senators, as well as a U.S. Senator and Congresswoman.

From 1993 to 1996, he edited and wrote for “The Wyoming Christian”, the state newsletter for Christian Coalition of Wyoming. During that period, he developed an acute awareness of the harm being done to Conservatism by liberal activists within the Republican Party as well as the Democrats. This remains a favorite theme of his articles, which now appear as a regular feature on GOPUSA.