One cannot underestimate how widely admired Tom Daschle is in Washington for his integrity.
The Democrats continue to snipe at Bush. They'll never give it up to him. You know Teddy Kennedy and Tom Daschle pick more nits than a father and son spider monkey team who know they're being followed by a National Geographic film crew.
I think the legacy was set because the way George Mitchell was the leader enabled Tom Daschle to be the leader he is. It carried on the spirit of integrity and of reform, of also working both with committee chairmen but bringing in the newer members to be able to have a voice and a say and participate in the deliberations, to always look at a modern way of doing it.
I watched Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle. Good grief. What whining weenies.
It took a little over a decade to build a coalition strong enough to beat the insurance companies, but in 1990, then Senator Tom Daschle and I passed a law regulating the private market for supplemental Medicare insurance policies.