WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Buzzflash, the Web site some people refer to as a kind of left-wing Drudge Report, is taking on U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
In an editorial posted Thursday, Buzzflash says Daschle needs to "recognize that many of the positions he needs to take to get re-elected in his home state are not ones that advance the national strategy of the Democratic Party."
A letter Buzzflash says was written by Daschle campaign aide Steve Hildebrand to a South Dakota newspaper is the source of the group's ire. Written after Sen. George Allen, R-Va., visited the state and criticized Daschle in the press, it tries to turn aside Allen's comments by identifying how strong a supporter of Republican President George W. Bush Daschle actually is.
"Allen claims that Daschle opposes the president at every turn, but in fact a Congressional Quarterly study has Sen. Daschle voting with President Bush 75 percent of the time," Buzzflash quotes the letter saying.
This leads Buzzflash to conclude that the senator "is either totally ineffective as minority leader because he is inherently inept at the position and unable to strategically battle the Republicans -- or he is so conflicted by the red party politics of his state, his wife's role as a lobbyist, and his Democratic Leadership Council corporate ties that he is rendered a rollover patsy for the Bush Cartel."
So much for a united front.
--
Ben Chandler, the first Kentucky Democrat in more than a quarter century to lose a general election bid for governor, says he will be a candidate in the special election to fill the congressional seat of the Republican who defeated him. Chandler announced Thursday afternoon that he would run for the 6th Congressional District seat vacated by Republican Ernie Fletcher, the commonwealth's new governor.
The Democrats will meet to formally select a nominee on Monday, though Chandler is not expected to face any opposition.
The Republicans choose their nominee Saturday. State Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr is considered to be the front-runner and has the backing of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. Fletcher won re-election in 2002 with 72 percent of the vote. George W. Bush carried the district, located in the central part of the state around Lexington, in the 2000 presidential racing, beating former Vice President Al Gore 55 percent to 42 percent.
The date for the special election has not been set but is expected to be held in mid-February.
--
Sources in South Carolina say that the New Year will bring with it another GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Democrat Sen. Ernest 'Fritz' Hollings. Insiders say that Democrat-turned-Republican former Gov. David Beasley, tossed out by the voters after a single term as governor, will throw his hat in the ring.
--
With national Democrats all but conceding next year's U.S. Senate race to the Republicans, the action moves to the July Republican primary. Several private polls show U.S. Rep. Johnny Isakson, from the area north of Atlanta, with a double-digit lead over his closest competitor, U.S. Rep. Mac Collins of the state's 8th Congressional District.
Collins' district, considered by many to be in "South Georgia," is not typically known for its Republican proclivities, at least in the primary season.
That may change if state legislators pushing to make the job of local sheriff a non-partisan position get their way. The GOP-controlled state Senate has passed a bill to do just that but similar legislation is bottled up in the Democrat-controlled state House.
The thinking, according to several Georgia political insiders, is that more of the still substantial number of conservative Democrats in South Georgia will turn out to vote in the party primary for sheriff -- an office with a more immediate connection to their everyday lives -- than will show up to help the GOP pick its U.S. Senate nominee. If the Legislature changes the nature of the sheriff races in time to change the primary process, it would free up these conservative voters to cast ballots in the GOP Senate primary, boosting Collins' chances of pulling off an upset win.
--
The district attorney of affluent Westchester County, N.Y., Jeanine Pirro, has been touring the country promoting her new book, To Punish and Protect. At a recent stop in Washington, Pirro -- who many Republicans believe has statewide ambitions somewhere down the road in spite of her public denials -- raised more than a few eyebrows with her agenda for reform of the criminal justice system.
Saying that in the current system, "We celebritize the criminal and blame the victim," Pirro wants to see an end to the statute of limitations, the implementation of preventative bail as a tool for prosecutors in state and local courts, and the elimination of the insanity defense.
--
(That's Politics! looks at the inner workings of the American political process and is written by UPI's Peter Roff, a 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)
