Daschle offers some sharp assessments along the way. His nuanced and careful impressions of President Bush are very persuasive, contradicting both the idealized portrait of the right and the left's ridiculous notion of the President as an idiot. Daschle is no supporter of Bush, but is careful to note his strengths.
Also of interest are the dynamics between senators as described here. Daschle's sometimes-cooperative, sometimes-conflictual relations with Trent Lott are described amply. One gets a sense of just how much the Senate relies on such relations (I regretted that the book was published too early to record his impressions of Bill Frist and certainly too early to record Frist's tacky visit to South Dakota to support John Thune against Daschle). Also explored in fascinating detail is the successful campaign to bring James Jeffords out of the GOP.
Daschle writes with frustration about the decline of civility in the Senate and Congress as a whole - an early section details the change in tone wrought by Newt Gingrich. This trend has since been accelerated by the machinations of the White House - one section details just how much Bush committed himself to the Thune-Johnson race in South Dakota. With evident pain, Daschle also discusses how the emotional farewell service to Paul Wellstone inadvertently became a more partisan rally (his balanced account of the event is a nice corrective to polemical accounts from either side)
Like other reviewers, I wish Daschle had commented about more topics. He declines to discuss the outcome of the Thune-Johnson race, but does imply that Bush's inattention to economic relief for South Dakota was a strong factor. Nor does the later victory of Mary Landrieu in Louisiana receive coverage. But his discussion of the Democratic Party's debate, in the fall of 2002, over going to war in Iraq is priceless. Daschle aptly conveys the slanderous attacks made against the party over Iraq and the Homeland Security bill. Though Daschle is clearly in a position of partisan authority, he makes a notable effort to keep his tone balanced and restrained.
I was really impressed by this book and by its author. Whatever the outcome of his race this year - and I'd very much like to see Daschle reelected for the sake of South Dakota and this country - I hope that this is not the last book he writes about American politics. This is a book worth buying and reading for the insights it offers about American politics and the current tumultuous era.
