The day before george w. bush de-livered his State of the Union address last week, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle flew to New York City for a private lunch with 50 or so Democratic donors, organized by Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. As Daschle made the case for why his party could pick up seats in the coming midterm elections, despite Bush's 80% job-approval ratings, an Alabama lawyer, Tazewell Shepard, cut through Daschle's gauzy talk. Name one issue, Shepard pressed, where the Democrats have the upper hand. Daschle was ready: The Enron debacle has people worried about their retirement security, he said; an issue that barely registered with voters six months ago has people jittery enough to produce "an escalation in the polling data."
展开▼
