Native Times: Smoldering coals of Election 2004 are still glowing

[Kire]

The smoldering coals of Election 2004 are still glowing
Notes from Indian Country

Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 1/3/2005

© 2005 Knight Ridder Tribune News Service

We now close the pages on another year. I only hope that the political bonfire that scorched the earth in 2004 is extinguished. The smoke that marked elections in the states and in the nation still hangs in the air.

A bitter battle was fought in South Dakota for the senate seat of incumbent Tom Daschle. In the end it wasn’t so much the political skills of Republican John Thune that won the day as it was the millions of dollars that poured into the state and manifested in the guise of 527 ads intended to hurt and maim.

The Republican establishment considered Daschle an obstructionist and the out-of-state money painted him that way. Major Republican figures paraded across the state in support of Thune and Daschle sat back and watched instead of bringing in his own parade. In the end he came up 4,500 votes short and we now have a new senator.

This in no way diminishes the man, his integrity or his accomplishments. Tom Daschle was one of the first United States Senators to champion the cause of the largest minority population in his state, the American Indians. Whether Thune picks up the baton and runs with it is still an unknown.

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