Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle thinks there ought to be an exemption from campaign challenge for ill incumbent Senators. Well, at least for Democratic senators.

The Hill reports Daschle has lashed out at the Republican Party for planning to contest the re-election of Sen. Tim Johnson, D-South Dakota. Johnson is currently recovering from a brain hemorrhage.

Calling national Republicans “sad” and “desperate,” former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) decried their pledge to begin pursuing an aggressive campaign against his ill former South Dakota Senate colleague, Sen. Tim Johnson (D).

In an e-mail to supporters issued by Johnson’s campaign committee, Daschle criticizes National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) for saying he would push forward with an effort to defeat Johnson in 2008.

Johnson suffered a life-threatening brain hemorrhage in December and has yet to return to the Senate or begin campaigning, but fellow Democratic senators have helped him raise more than $1.2 million this year for his reelection bid.

In his e-mail, Daschle asks supporters to send Ensign e-mails demanding that he “stop the attacks.”

Johnson's seat is a top Republican target in the 2008 election cycle. State Rep. Joel Dykstra became the first major Republican candidate to join the race.

I'm sorry Sen. Johnson suffered a major illness. But if he's going to offer himself up as the best person to represent South Dakota in the U.S. Senate from 2008 through 2014, Republicans have the right - indeed, the duty - to offer South Dakotans an alternative choice.

If they don't, they disenfranchise the people of South Dakota.

Tim Johnson suffered a tragic illness. That shouldn't abrogate the right of the people of South Dakota to have a say in whether or not he serves them in the U.S. Senate for another six years. After all, it is not Tim Johnson's Senate seat, it belongs to the people of the great state of South Dakota.

And if Daschle was being intellectually consistent, he wouldn't have sent what clearly was a fund-raising letter - after all, he is claiming that ill senators shouldn't have a God-given right to re-election.

NRSC spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher put it well: "It’s acceptable for Democrats to fundraise for Sen. Johnson but it’s over the line for Republicans to say the seat is a focus? Sounds like the very definition of hypocritical to me."