Good, "Inside the Senate" in Daschle's new book "The Hill"
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‘Never lie to me’: Bush to Daschle
By Albert Eisele
A new memoir by Minority Leader Tom Daschle says Senate Democrats were actively courting two Republicans — John McCain of Arizona and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island — as most likely to switch parties and give them control of the evenly divided Senate when Jim Jeffords of Vermont informed them he was ready to do so.
The heretofore untold sequence of events that led to Jeffords’ dramatic decision to bolt the Republican Party in May 2001 and become an Independent is disclosed for the first time in Daschle’s book, which covers the tumultuous two-year period following President Bush’s disputed election in November, 2000.
The book by the South Dakota Democrat, Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever, was written with co-author Michael D’Orso and is scheduled to be published next month.
The details of Jeffords’s decision, which ruptured his ties with the White House and many GOP colleagues and made Daschle majority leader, are among a number of insights Daschle provides into the inner workings of the Senate, his reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the bioterrorism attack that exposed 20 of his aides to deadly anthrax spores and caused the Hart Senate Office building to be closed for months.
Daschle also offers some harsh judgments of congressional Republicans and the Republican Party as well as veiled criticism of Vice President Al Gore and several Democratic Senate colleagues.
They include:
• His “complex and layered” relationship with the man he replaced as majority leader, Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who he said was so shocked by losing control of the Senate “that he could hardly finish a sentence” and could not accept the fact he had to share power in a 50-50 Senate.
• His admission that he initially underestimated George W. Bush and his grudging concession that he “is an undeniably effective communicator, not unlike Ronald Reagan” who “knows where he stands and is smart enough to understand what he needs to do in order to frame and express his stance on a particular subject.”
• His implicit criticism of Gore’s personality: “Al Gore’s breadth and depth of knowledge, his experience, his grasp of the issue were clearly superior [to Bush]. But people liked Bush.” However, he credits Gore with acting in the nation’s best interests by not challenging the results of the 2000 election.
• His undisguised concern about “the rabidly fierce ideology” and “crusader-like zeal” of Bush’s top advisers, including Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, among others.
• His disappointment with “moderate” Democratic colleagues such as Zell Miller of Georgia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Max Baucus of Montana, John Breaux of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Tom Carper of Delaware for their willingness to go along with Bush and the Republicans on key issues.
• His low opinion of his former Senate colleague, John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), whose fitness to serve as attorney general he questions because he has “openly and defiantly used the power of his positions to advance his right-wing ideology.”
• His disdain for former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) who he said was bent on “demonizing” Democrats and portraying them as not only wrong or misguided but “evil,” and his scathing criticism of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), whom he accused of ruling “by fear, by discouraging any form of dissent among his membership, and by punishing those who dare to disagree.”
• His revelation that he intended to run for president himself in 2004 until he decided, after enduring “excruciating” inner turmoil, that he did not want to risk giving up his Senate seat and could not run for president and lead his caucus “in a new Senate that had an aggressive and extremely empowered Republican majority.”
Daschle also recounts his meeting with President-elect Bush in his Capitol office in January 2001.
“Until then, I never noticed his Texas swagger,” Daschle writes. “Perhaps it was the fact that in order to enter my suite in the Capitol, you actually need to pass through a set of swinging saloon-style doors. The combination of Bush’s confident strut, his self-assured manner, and those saloon doors swinging shut behind him all combined to create an image of a new sheriff in town. Which, in essence, he was.”
Nevertheless, Daschle confesses that he was troubled when Bush, after expressing the hope that they could work together as closely as Bush had with Bob Bullock, his Democratic lieutenant governor in Texas, said, “I hope you’ll never lie to me.”
“That statement caught me up short. What an unusual concern to express in such a meeting.… I’ve often wondered since then what George Bush might have been told about me that would make him begin this conversation, this relationship, from an implied position of mistrust.”
The catalyst for Jeffords’ decision in May 2001 was a meeting in late March between him and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Daschle writes.
The two men met in Dodd’s office on a Friday afternoon in late March “to discuss an amendment on child care. But they wound up talking about Jim’s friction with Bush and with the Republican leadership, Daschle writes. “At one point in the conversation, Jim wondered aloud if there was any room left for him in the Republican Party.”
“Chris could hardly stay in his seat,” Daschle recounts. “As soon as Jim left, Chris got on the phone and tracked me down in my office. ‘I think there’s something going on here,’ Chris said. ‘I think we really need to begin talking to him.”
Dodd’s phone call precipitated a carefully orchestrated behind-the-scenes effort by Daschle and other Democrats, including Vermont’s Patrick Leahy, to persuade Jeffords to defect. The effort was aided by White House snubs of Jeffords and by fellow Republicans, notably Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Pete Domenici of New Mexico, who undercut his authority as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Daschle believes that the key precipitating event occurred when Budget Committee Chairman Domenici informed him in early May that there was nothing for special education in the president’s education bill.
“That’s when I started making personal overtures, calling Jim, commiserating with him, and letting him know we were willing to talk whenever he was,” Daschle writes. “He came by my office a couple of times for brief chats … but we were very careful about that. I never came near him on the Senate floor itself or, for that matter, in any location where the press or Republican members might see us.”
Then, on the evening of Monday, May 14, Assistant Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told Daschle that Jeffords wanted to meet with them in his hideaway office in the Capitol the next morning.
“It was 7 a.m. when Harry and I arrived at Jim’s hideaway that Tuesday morning, and Jim got right down to business. he had three primary concerns, and they could be summarized as: cows, committees and co-workers.”
Daschle agreed to oppose efforts to eliminate the government’s dairy policy and Reid volunteered to step aside so Jeffords could become chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and to let him bring along all his staffers.
Daschle and Reid and their aides watched on television two days later as Jeffords announce his decision in Vermont, without knowing for certain what he would do.
“When Jim reached the point in his speech where he said, ‘I will make this change and will caucus with the Democrats for organization purposes …,’ the room exploded with cheers. You could hear us out in the halls.”
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