Is there a way to add the DATE to a control page?

You can use the same method as adding the timestamp - Python datetime objects contain both the date and time so you can use the Python formatting strings to show the date. For instance, the formatting string "%B %d, %Y" would result in "June 13, 2012".

Of course the trigger that updates the variable only needs to run once a day.

Excellent! Thanks

I'm not sure what else that action can do, but maybe "Insert TimeDateStamp into Variable" would better describe its functions.