Senate race is intensely local, archly national

Tim Johnson can't dance. Even the simple two-step march into the pow-wow circle at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation looks like a stretch for the resolutely unflashy junior senator from South Dakota.

But the votes here could decide one of the closest races of this election season, as well as who controls the next US Senate. The candidate gamely thumps on around the arena.

It's a sign that, despite the millions in outside dollars pouring into the state, this race is still intensely local. And both sides say that it will be won or lost on the ground, not on the airwaves.

With control of a closely divided Senate on the line, any tight race has national consequences. But this race has taken on special import because it's on the home turf of Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who may take on President Bush in 2004. President Bush personally recruited Rep. John Thune to oppose Mr. Johnson, a first-term incumbent. The president has visited South Dakota three times since his election in 2000, which he won here by a margin of 22 points over Vice President Al Gore.

At first glance, South Dakota is a dream venue for outside groups with cash to spend on campaigns. Television advertising is cheap. And the whole state, not including the prairie dogs, doesn't have the population of Indianapolis.

But the distances across these plains are vast, and South Dakotans take pride in knowing their politicians face to face. They expect candidates to show up in person, preferably driving their own cars. And they don't like nasty campaigns.

The ads in this race – paid for by groups like the Sierra Club, the National Right to Life Committee, and the Club for Growth – have been relentless and hard-edged for months. This week, the national parties stepped up their own Senate ad campaigns. Locals say they are tired of it.

"People just aren't paying attention any more. The ads come on, the mind goes blank," says Mike Coyle, a retired truck driver at the Belle Inn truck stop in Belle Fourche. The state has been deluged in political advertising for months, much of it negative. Still, he's planning to vote this year, but hasn't decided between "Tim or John."

"I'm registered a Republican, but I just try to figure out who can do the most to help South Dakota. We're years behind the rest of the nation," he adds.

In a poor state where most people don't earn much more than the minimum wage, Washington looms large in everyday life – even in nonelection years. Federal dollars fund roads, water projects, retirement, and farm subsidies. When Jim Palmer's son hit a log and mangled the motor on his boat, he blamed the Army Corps of Engineers for releasing too much water (and prize game fish) to bail out barge operators downriver.

"They control the river, when they don't know anything about it," says Mr. Palmer, a former railroad engineer who now lives in Mobridge. "The Oahe dam is the greatest thing that ever happened in this area, and now they're screwing it all up. The bait shops and gas stations are going out of business," he adds.

Johnson tells Mobridge residents gathered at a campaign barbecue in the senior center that he'll do something about the Corps.

The Missouri River, which runs down the center of the state, is the boundary most locals use to describe two different cultures in their state: East River is farmers, row crops (and enough rain to grow them), meatpackers, and Citibank. West River is ranchers, cattle, windswept buttes, empty missile silos, and hours on the road without an open gas station. West River votes Republican, while East River produces populist Democrats, like former presidential candidate George McGovern, as well as Senators Daschle and Johnson.

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