Wes Vernon
Thursday, March 1, 2001

Sources tell NewsMax.com that White House trip planners are actively considering a trip by President Bush to the Dakotas.

Daschle's South Dakota is solidly in the heart of "Bush Country," represented by that wide swath of red on the famous election map that shows Bush won the White House by sweeping Heartland America. And the president is very popular there.

Any visit by Bush touting his tax cuts to cheering South Dakotans could present Daschle with an uncomfortable situation. Right now, he is busy fighting the president's tax proposal by wielding the iron fist with which he has kept Senate Democrats in lockstep opposition to everything from the Clinton impeachment to Republican budgets. The high-profile defection on this issue of Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., will not become a trend if the South Dakotan can help it. And he’ll move heaven and earth to keep it from spreading.

But Daschle is a different person when he’s back home with the conservative folks in his state. The leftist rhetoric with which he plays politics "inside the Beltway" is definitely downplayed. He’s good at staying in touch. In his first 12 years in the Senate, he has driven to all 66 counties in South Dakota every year, sometimes driving by himself, dressed casually, and talking to his constituents over coffee or at gas stations, seeking their views and concerns. He keeps his fences mended, trying to mitigate some of his Beltway "liberal" rhetoric those constituents see on C-Span.

A visit to South Dakota residents by President Bush to sell the same tax cuts that their senior senator is working so hard to defeat is not a prospect Daschle would relish.

Not that the senator is being singled out. There are similar efforts afoot in the bailiwicks of other prominent left-wing lawmakers, as well.

This is a campaign to deal with the familiar scenario of lawmakers who vote left in Congress and talk conservative or at least blur their left-wing instincts back home.

The late Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, was a classic example. One of Church’s aides once bragged to me about the tough balancing act the senator had to follow with his "two constituencies" - one among the conservative voters in Idaho, the other among supporters at Manhattan fund-raising cocktail parties where Church’s "one world" foreign policy positions were a big hit. Idahoans finally caught on to all this and ousted Church in 1980. They have not sent a single Democrat to the U.S. Senate since then.

The White House is far from alone at this stage of its tax cut battle.

United Seniors Association is launching a massive campaign today for "quickly gaining broad public support for President Bush’s Tax Relief Plan."

Phase One is a $2 million multimedia effort "to secure the support of senior citizens and other Americans for quick passage" of the legislation, according to an outline released by the group.

Longtime entertainer Art Linkletter will be featured in TV ads, print ads, op-eds and articles for targeted states, including Daschle’s South Dakota, Montana, Ohio, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont and Louisiana.

It will also include a direct mail campaign "educating at least 5 million taxpayers" about the plan and supplying them with addresses and phone numbers of their congressmen and senators. And there will be town hall meetings, cyber meetings, a targeted grassroots tour, and use of e-mails, faxes, and mailgrams to lawmakers and the media.

The White House has issued a single-page explanation of the plan, specifying what it does, why America’s low- and middle-income families are the biggest winners, why America needs a tax cut, and "what the critics are saying and why they are wrong."

In the latter category, the arguments are made that the largest percentage cuts go to those making less, thus confronting head on the "tax cuts for the rich" argument. As for the "we can’t afford it" plea, the White House notes the president’s plan "uses roughly one-fourth of the surplus for responsible and fair tax relief that protects Social Security, and provides funding for key priorities like education, Medicare, and defense."

Sources at the White House acknowledge that while conservatives generally are on board big time for this legislation, there is some unhappiness among pro-family groups. They note that unlike last year’s bill, which passed Congress before it was vetoed by then-President Bill Clinton, the current measure in its preliminary form is considerably less generous to those families with one-earner incomes where mothers stay at home to raise children. White House operatives indicate they are amenable to possible changes in this part of the measure.

Bottom line: The Bush administration and its allies are leaving no stone unturned to give Americans the "refund" the president asked for in his Tuesday evening address to Congress.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration

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