Obama's Secret Weapon
Endorsements. Key staffers. Fundraising lists. Brotherly advice. Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is making his presence felt behind the scenes in Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Three years ago, it took a nasty, industrial-strength assault by Karl Rove & Co. to oust Democratic leader Tom Daschle from his Senate seat. But if Republicans thought they had seen the last of the resilient South Dakotan, they were wrong. He's back, this time behind the scenes, as a sort of secret sauce in the surging presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.
Daschle spent 30 years on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide, House member, senator and ultimately Democratic Senate leader. Now he is providing newcomer Obama with valuable endorsements, staff, fundraising lists and brotherly advice. "He brings an unrivaled mix of policy knowledge and political expertise," said Steven Hildebrand, an Obama senior campaign advisor. He ought to know: a fellow South Dakotan, he ran Daschle's last Senate campaign.
Money talks and Daschle knows the language. Although three years distant from the Hill (he is now a law firm consultant and lecturer at Georgetown), Daschle has carefully maintained his mailing list of 85,000 donors, and he is renting it to only one candidate – Obama. I am told that Daschle is about to do a fundraising letter for the campaign as well. "He is incredibly well-liked by Democrats," said Hildebrand. "He really doesn't have any enemies in the party."
His friends include an array of former staffers, friends and protégés who are working for Obama, among them Hildebrand, Senate chief of staff Pete Rouse, chief fundraiser Julianna Smoot, communications boss Robert Gibbs, press aide Dan Pfeiffer and research director Devorah Adler. Rouse, who has known Daschle for 30 years, was Obama's first and most important congressional hire.
An edge over Clinton
Daschle's unusually early endorsement of Obama last February gave the newcomer desperately-needed instant clout among insiders who were resigned to the inevitability of Hillary Clinton, but praying for an alternative. "What Daschle brought was credibility," said an insider close to both men, "and now they have developed a good personal relationship." The two men share a similar approach to both the process and substance of politics: a certain soft-spoken meticulousness, and a desire to blunt the sharp edges of partisanship.
Interestingly – tellingly – it was Obama who reached out to Daschle. In 2004, Obama was cruising to an easy victory in the Illinois Senate race, and had a lot of unused cash on hand. He gave a lot of it – some $85,000, according to Hildebrand – to Daschle, who was under White House siege in South Dakota. Even before he was sworn in, Obama knew who he wanted for his chief of staff: Rouse. Ironically, Daschle advised Rouse, a veteran with 30 years service on the Hill, to leave the Congress and take a lucrative lobbying position. But Obama sold Rouse, and in the process began the task of wooing Rouse's boss.
An Obama surrogate
Now Daschle and Obama talk regularly – the two have had a number of quiet dinners – and Daschle will soon be playing a major role on the campaign trail, serving as a mild-mannered but well-liked surrogate among party faithful.
I can see him being especially helpful in Iowa, where the almost-too-earnest caucus culture is tailor-made for Daschle's diligent approach to the game. "Iowa is Daschle's kind of place," said Hildebrand. That might make it Obama's, too.
One other thing. If Obama wins the nomination, Daschle will be a top contender for running mate. Far-fetched? Maybe. South Dakota is a red state, and one with the fewest possible electoral votes: three. But in 2000, political novice George W. Bush chose a congressional veteran from a sparsely-populated state as his reassuringly experienced running mate. Is Tom Daschle the Democratic answer to Dick Cheney? Then Daschle would be back, big time.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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