playing to the home crowd

Via Drudge: Has Tom Daschle gotten religion?

Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., on Thursday praised the Bush administration's war and nation-building work in Iraq and said he has no serious concerns about the lack of weapons of mass destruction.

Daschle told state chamber of commerce representatives meeting in the South Dakota capital that he is satisfied with the way things are going in Iraq.

“I give the effort overall real credit,” Daschle said. “It is a good thing Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. It is a good thing we are democratizing the country.”

He said he is not upset about the debate over pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, an issue that has dogged President Bush as Democratic presidential contenders have slogged through the primary season.

“We can argue about the WMD and what we should have known,” Daschle, the Senate minority leader, said.

Well.

So very expansive. So very bipartisan.

And so transparently opportunistic.

Note carefully that he made these remarks to the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce. Apparently, he believes that no one from his home state has cable television, and saw this sorry response to the President's State of the Union speech last month:

Democrats have an unwavering commitment to ensure that America's armed forces remain the best trained, best led, best equipped force for peace the world has ever known. Never before have we been more powerful militarily. But even the most powerful nation in history must bring other nations to our side to meet common dangers.

The President's policies do not reflect that. He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy that leaves us isolated abroad and that steals the resources we need for education and health care here at home.

The President led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition.

So why the new earnestness?

Daschle faces a re-election race this year against former Republican congressman John Thune.

And a stiff race to boot. Thune garnered much goodwill after the 2002 South Dakota Senate election, when he declined to contest his narrow loss in spite of likely Democratic voting improprieties.

UPDATE: South Dakota Politics is a blog devoted to…well, South Dakota politics, and Jason Van Beek kindly linked to this post. What's more, there is also a blog devoted solely to the Daschle/Thune race (“Analyzing the Biggest Senate Race in the USA”). It seems that Dakotans are well aware of Daschle's penchant for being a Ted Kennedy while in DC and a Zell Miller when at home.