Daschle Faces Tough Test in Tight South Dakota Race

Mon Sep 27,12:20 PM ET

By Michael Conlon

SIOUX FALLS (Reuters) - South Dakota truck driver Mark Monahan says he's had enough of Tom Daschle. So do top Republicans who have made the U.S. Senate's No. 1 Democrat a bull's-eye target for removal from the national scene.

"I'm tired of Daschle," said Monahan. "The war on terror is the biggest reason. I'm pretty sure he's not helping the president fight this war."

He plans to vote in November for Republican John Thune, who lost the closest Senate race in the country just two years ago and is battling Daschle on issues ranging from leadership and loyalty to his 25-year record in the U.S. Congress.

In a state where razor-close congressional elections have become a way of life, voters again appear divided.

Thune, a former U.S. House of Representatives member, has accused Daschle of making remarks that "embolden the enemy" and undermine the morale of U.S. troops in Iraq. In March of 2003, just before the war started, Daschle said President Bush had "failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're forced to war."

But Monahan, watching his 4-year-old son ride in a bouncing coin-operated car outside a Younkers department store near Sioux Falls, said he is also upset with Daschle on issues such as gay marriage and his blocking of some judicial nominations.

"He fights the Republicans like hell in Washington, but comes back here with another story," he added.

Daschle's role in Washington as point man for battles against the Republican-controlled White House and Congress have put him near the top of the Republican hit list in this year's election. Republicans are eyeing the chance for a turnover in South Dakota that would send Daschle home and perhaps cement their hold on the Senate that they now control, and set the agenda for, by one seat.

Daschle has been running a television commercial showing him giving Bush a hug in the immediate aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a scene Daschle said showed his leadership in a time of crisis but which Republicans have characterized as a duplicitous attempt to link himself to Bush, who carried South Dakota in 2000 by a 22-point margin is likely to take it again in November.

But in the Senate race, Monahan's family from the nearby town of Hartford is divided. His wife, Jody, said she was not ready to back Thune over Daschle, and had not made up her mind.

Daschle won support however from a retired Sioux Falls couple taking a break on a nearby bench.

"He's done a good job," said Corinne Soyland as her husband Rod nodded. "It's his record overall. And I don't like the negative things John Thune has been saying."

"The Republicans usually win everything around here, but I know a lot of Republicans who are voting for Daschle," she added. The couple -- he is retired from a freight company and she from a nursing home -- also rejected charges made by Thune that Daschle has been a knee-jerk "rubber stamp" for Democratic policies, obstructing key pieces of legislation.

Daschle will need support from independents and Republicans if he hopes to win in South Dakota, the fifth least populated U.S. state with about 750,000 people spread over 77,116 square miles from Mt. Rushmore's Black Hills in the west to the rivers of the east.

Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 44,000 and there are an estimated 61,000 voters who list themselves as independents.

A poll released on Sunday by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader found Daschle with a five-point lead over Thune, with 5 percent undecided. The telephone survey of 800 likely voters was taken last week and had a plus or minus 3.5-point error margin.

Daschle was first elected to the House in 1978 by 139 votes. He is now seeking his fourth six-year Senate term. His years in Washington are both an asset and a liability. One soft-sell television commercial for Thune simply says "It's time."

The National Republican Senatorial Committee lists the South Dakota race as second in importance only to the presidential election, one that may well determine "how much President Bush could accomplish if he wins a second term."

South Dakota voters in the past have not been reluctant to swap old faces for new ones, dumping such incumbents as former Sens. George McGovern, Larry Pressler and James Abdnor -- the last two Republicans and the first the one-time Democratic presidential candidate.

Thune is a familiar though fresher face. He served three terms in the House before running for the Senate two years ago against incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson. He lost to Johnson by 524 votes, in a contest where ballots cast by the state's native American population -- the biggest racial minority in the state -- played a key role.