My first blush opinion was — and I think still is — that Tom Daschle’s presidential prospects were severely diminished by the Democrats’ showing on November 5th. But I’m told he’s 
making his decision now and will likely have that decision made by the end of the year. One interesting detail is that if Daschle decides to run he’d probably have a good chance of holding onto the core of the team that ran Tim Johnson’s winning campaign in South Dakota. That would likely mean much of the senior staff and thus most of the couple dozen field staffers who would be key in early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Johnson was the only Democrat to pull out a victory from one of the close or dead-even races last week. And he managed to do so in what was probably the most pro-Bush state in contention. A lot of that — as we said and predicted here months ago — was a matter of staffing. We’ll be saying more about this.
