Mad Daschle

He advanced quickly from senior-class president to foreign-policy aide for the Senate's most outspoken anti-Israel lawmaker to one of Washington's youngest congressmen. Today, he's one of the most powerful men in the world, able to derail many presidential plans, yet little is known—and even less is written—of his early climb. Here's a view of the lower rungs | Bob Jones

OF ALL THE PICTURES IN his high-school yearbook, Tom Daschle looks happiest with his fellow senior-class officers. It was clearly a triumph for him: No one would have expected the baby-faced son of a small shop owner and the Avon lady to be class president at Aberdeen Central High. It was quite an accomplishment—maybe the high point of his life.

Nothing in his early years suggested he would rise much higher. His slight build wasn't conducive to sports, the normal path to glory in Midwestern towns like Aberdeen. Singing in the a capella choir at Central High School and joining a civic club called the Young Cosmopolitans didn't exactly win Tom the title of Big Man on Campus. While he toiled in relative obscurity, classmates like Lars Herseth, a blond-haired, blue-eyed jock, hogged most of the pages in the yearbook. The son of a former governor, Lars was expected to do big things, and he didn't disappoint. He served 20 years in the state legislature and nearly became governor himself in 1986. (This year, his daughter Stephanie is the Democratic nominee for South Dakota's lone congressional seat.)