Secretly buying votes with Wind Cave?

DVT has found a KOTA report titled, “Wind Cave used as bargaining chip?”:

Earlier this year, Senator Tom Daschle convinced an independent challenger to drop out of the race for US Senate, but what did Daschle promise in return? A report published in the Lakota Journal newspaper says control and ownership of Wind Cave National Park were used as a bargaining chip in convincing publisher Tim Giago to leave the Senate race.

DVT also found an AP report regarding a closed meeting Daschle is having today:

The meeting Saturday will include chairmen, vice chairmen and council members from all nine American Indian tribes in South Dakota as well as Daschle, Sen. Tim Johnson, and staff from Rep. Stephanie Herseth's office, said Giago. Herseth won't join the meeting because she is traveling in Iraq.

Earlier this year Tony Dean posted a comment from one of his environmental extremist buddies who took Larry Diedrich to task for not being in favor of expanding Wind Cave. Guess who was in favor of expanding Wind Cave:

Tom Daschle supports the expansion. So does Tim Johnson. And Stephanie Herseth. Bill Janklow supported it before he resigned. But Larry Deidrich? No. I'm sure the Wise Use people think he's great.

I don’t think all wise people are welcome at today’s meeing:

The session, which is closed to the public, came about after discussions between Giago, an American Indian newspaper publisher, and Daschle, who is seeking re-election to his fourth term in the U.S. Senate.

One of those wise people is John Thune:

Among those absent from the meeting will be Thune. Dick Wadhams, Thune's campaign manager, said Thune was not invited and has scheduled other campaign events on Saturday.