Capitol Grudge Match

VINCENT J. MUSI FOR TIME
ON THE ROAD: Daschle campaining for Pingree in Maine

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But Lott has a target painted on his back as well. Oklahoma's conservative Senator Don Nickles, the minority whip, has been meeting privately with G.O.P. Senators to sound them out about his replacing Lott if the Republicans don't take back the Senate this fall. "If we lose seats, Lott faces a no-confidence vote," predicts one Republican Senator. To head that off, Lott is raising campaign cash for allies and pressing other Republican Senators to spread the wealth. When Senator Bill Frist, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, handed him a report in March showing that only a quarter of the G.O.P. Senators had dipped into their war chests to help other candidates in trouble, Lott stormed into a meeting of Senate G.O.P. leaders and slapped the paper on the table. "This has got to change!" he demanded.

Daschle, whose soft-spoken manner masks the fact that he's a ruthlessly efficient campaigner, has been crisscrossing the country for Democratic candidates. He was stumping in Maine late last month for Chellie Pingree, who is waging an insurgent battle to unseat Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Daschle confides that his "sweetest dream" is to hold Johnson's seat in South Dakota as payback for the negative ads and pull off upsets in Texas and Maine, which would embarrass the Bush family in its two home states.

But Daschle knows this is a long shot. A former Air Force intelligence officer, he has a contingency plan ready if Republicans gain a seat and the Senate again splits 50-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney poised to break a tie. Daschle claims that Jeffords wasn't the only disaffected G.O.P. Senator he was talking to a year ago and that since then he has had "occasional conversations" with other potential defectors. He won't name names, but says, "It would surprise people if they knew." Most of all, Trent Lott.