Last week, I
posted about this guy Giago trying to spoil Daschle Senate's reelection bid.
Here's more detail to the story for the WaPo. The upshot? Not good. Here's the gist:
Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) has what some Democrats might call a Ralph Nader problem.
The Senate minority leader, who was already facing a tough reelection fight this year, must now contend with a Native American newspaper publisher who has decided to run for Daschle's seat as an independent.
Tim Giago, editor and publisher of the Lakota Journal, announced that he is ditching his plans to run in the state's Democratic primary -- where he probably would have been trounced -- and, instead, will challenge Daschle and Republican John Thune in the general election.
Giago told the Argus Leader, a newspaper in Sioux Falls, S.D., that the decision will help focus public attention on Native American concerns. "Our issues need to be analyzed, put on the table and discussed," he said. Giago needs to collect more than 3,000 signatures to get his name on the ballot.
His decision likely will complicate Daschle's bid. South Dakota is home to about 60,000 Native Americans, the vast majority of whom vote Democratic. Thune, a former congressman, lost his 2002 bid to unseat Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) by just 524 votes. Johnson won overwhelmingly among Native Americans.
This is "South Dakota's senatorial answer to Ralph Nader," said William Richardson, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota. "If he's going to siphon votes away from anybody, he's certainly going to get it from Tom Daschle."
So, it doesn't look good. But it's thin on details.
Any SD people out there that know more details?