Tom Daschle

Sept. 5 -- Every August, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle takes a road trip across South Dakota, his home state, at times travelling in a rented car without an entourage. Nightline's Chris Bury spent a few days with him on the road, discussing Washington, his relations with President Bush, and whether he might run for president himself.

CHRIS BURY (VO) For Tom Daschle, driving these long, lonely stretches of South Dakota is more than a way to touch base with his home state. It's also an escape from the stuffy rituals of Washington and the relentless pressures of his new role.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE You get tired of wearing a jacket and a tie. You get tired of sitting at conference tables. And you get tired of all of the intensity every time you walk in one of those rooms. So this is the antidote. This is the way to relieve that pressure and all of that tension and the fatigue that comes with all of those meetings.

CHRIS BURY (VO) On this trip, Senator Daschle has not only shed his jacket and tie but the entourage that serves as a second skin to someone like the senate majority leader in Washington. Here there are no aides, no driver, no press pack, just a rented red Pontiac and a map of the open road. His plan is to visit all 66 counties in South Dakota?.

Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the highest-ranking Democrat in the land, just shows up unannounced at farms, banks, and of course the South Dakota state fair. Here most people he meets seem pleasantly surprised and genuinely proud. But they're not impressed by his title. One woman gives him hell for his position on a local dam project.

2ND WOMAN Don't uh-huh me. I am tired of the lies and the (word censored by station) you politicians are giving us.

CHRIS BURY (VO) Love him or hate him, South Dakotans call Senator Daschle by his first name.

Out here I notice that people invariably refer to you as Tom.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE Yeah, I think it's probably the Midwest informality, and it's really what I prefer to be called. I've never been one very big on titles, so I like to keep it that way.

CHRIS BURY Is part of the reason you do this because of the perception that you might be seen as too big for your breeches after going to Washington?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE Yeah, I think that in part. I think when I went to the Senate I was real concerned about not losing touch.

A Prairie Populist

CHRIS BURY (VO) Wherever he travels, the conversation inevitably turns to the nuts and bolts of economic survival in the state that largely missed out on the prosperity of the '90s.... The long declining farm economy is slowly killing off entire towns. In his annual pilgrimage back to South Dakota he returns to a place that is an unlikely base for the most visible leader of the national Democrats. Indeed, South Dakota is predominantly white, rural, and Republican.

Meeting with farmers in the back room of a livestock auction barn, Daschle sounds like a prairie populist, blaming big oil for hiking the price of gasoline.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE I think that people worry about big government. They should be a lot more worried about big corporations and the dominance they have in our lives today.

CHRIS BURY (VO) But many farmers here also believe that President Bush's energy plan pushing more exploration for oil would help lower their costs. And at the state fair one of them angrily scolds Senator Daschle for leading the opposition to drilling in the Arctic.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE We ought to agree to disagree.

4TH MAN I don't think you represent me anymore.

CHRIS BURY (VO) In this socially conservative state where Republicans have carried the last nine presidential elections, Daschle's record as a strong supporter of abortion rights is also a perennial sore spot.