Former Senator
Tom Daschle
Notes from Evan Smith
"He was a fixture in Washington — a familiar face on the Sunday talk shows, a reassuring presence in the halls of government, a policy wonk, a political power player. And then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone — a victim of the partisan wars that sacrificed so many good men and true, and women too, on the altar of ideological purity. But Tom Daschle doesn’t have any regrets, for the 60-year-old’s life as a public servant was richly rewarding, brimming with accomplishments that will fill the pages of history books, and his life after public service hasn’t been so bad either. Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Daschle earned a degree in political science from South Dakota State University – the first person in his family to graduate from college. After three years as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Command, he worked as an aide to the man whose seat he would one day hold, U.S. Senator James Abourezk. In 1978, he was elected to Congress, serving four terms in the House before peeling off to run for the Senate against Abourezk’s successor, Republican James Abdnor. Twice reelected, Daschle spent eighteen years in the Senate, eleven of those as Democratic leader – including a whiplash-inducing period in 2001 when he was minority leader, then majority leader, then minority leader again, then majority again – all in the space of six months. In 2004, Daschle was defeated for reelection by Representative John Thune in a bitterly contested battle decided by fewer than 5,000 votes. In the years since, he has been a sought-after speaker, a visiting professor at Georgetown, a Distingiushed Fellow at the Center for American Progress, the co-creator of the Bipartisan Policy Center, the co-chair of the ONE Vote ’08 Campaign, and a special D.C.-based policy advisor at the Alston and Bird law firm, officing just down the hall from his old pal and fellow former Senate leader Bob Dole. He is also working as hard as he can to help elect the man who inspires him like no other, Barack Obama, become the 44th president of the United States." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 2.21.08
