Kevin Woster brings us a political conversation that KELO-TV never would have otherwise. He gets former Republican state senator Don Frankenfeld to tell us what he really thinks of U.S. Senate candidate Marion Michael Rounds:
I agree that Mike Rounds is the front runner, but he has not yet established himself as the likely winner. He is a decent guy who more or less lucked into his first victory (I voted for him because I was so disgusted with the Barnett-Kirby fiasco) and has never faced a serious elective challenge. As a public speaker, he is kind of boring. By reputation he is kind of a control freak, even serving as his own campaign manager when he first ran. Of course he is formidable, but he is also vulnerable, particularly if he has to tack to the right to protect his flank in a primary. And if he wins, there is every reason to expect the same old gridlock in Washington [Don Frankenfeld, quoted in Kevin Woster, "Until Abdallah Calls, Here’s What Frankenfeld Has to Say about Pressler," KELOLand.com, 2013.12.18].
Hmm... if Rounds is a control freak, what does that say about his involvement in the GOED/EB-5/NBP monkeyshines that took place under his watch?
Frankenfeld says Pressler could actually win the Senate race as an Independent. Whether or not Pressler would win, Frankenfeld believes Pressler would have a positive impact on the election:
Provided he can establish his credibility, Senator Pressler’s candidacy will dramatically change the political conversation. It will motivate both the Republican and Democrat candidates to more toward the reasonable middle. It will reduce but not eliminate the sound bytes that routinely insult a voter’s intelligence. It will create a real danger in negative campaigning. And it will make for a very interesting election, and probably a higher vote turnout than one normally expects from an off-year election [Frankenfeld, in Woster, 2013.12.18].
Remember, contrary to the flak the GOP is firing, Rick Weiland is already closer to the center than the extreme left (ask real leftists outside South Dakota). But if Pressler could pull Rounds into a more rational battle for the vast unideological middle, and if Pressler could get more people watching the campaign, reading the blogs (hee hee!), and heading to the polls, I would welcome his entry into the race. Come and get it, Larry!
p.s.: Former lawman and legislator Gene Abdallah says he'll back Pressler, too. "I’m not happy with the choices that are running now," says Republican Abdallah of the Republicans before him.
I can sure believe Rounds is a control freak. This is the guy who as governor wouldn't let the state pilots hired to fly the state planes fly them while he was on board, but rather had to be at the controls himself.
Well, if Rino Mike is such a control freak then he must have been supervising the whole NBP/EB-5 thing with his usual attention to detail, huh?
Pressler's dalliances with hinduism and scandal-snared indian gurus probably would not play well with most of the right wing christians in South Dakota.
Cranky Old Dude is right on. Rounds pushed the Northern Beef Packing plant personally. His fingerprints are all over those failed crony capitalism projects. Him avoiding the press that debates bring is the more likely reason he is avoiding debates.
"more likely reason he is avoiding debates."
No stace, he is avoiding debates because that would make you relevant.
Rounds would not only look like a balding dwarf on a dais next to Stace he would be ethically dwarfed as well.
Curious how much money Mike and Bob Fischer have given to the
variantvarious parishes to tamp down catholic clergy abuses.Wasn't it Stace that said Rounds would drop out of the race in December?
Only 11 days left in December, maybe Pressler knows something.
And this Independent would caucus with…? Pressler doesn't scare me as much as a Repub. majority in the Senate. Ted Cruz heading any committee? McCain, foreign relations? Some scary possibilities out there!
Larry, Would that be Sneezy or Grumpy standing next to Stace?
Is Dumpy one of the Dwarfs? That would have to be Bosworth.
Mike Rounds a control freak? That's a funny one, sounds like he was more of a lazy governor. Just handing the NBP job over to Joop (did anyone even know who the guy with a funny name was?) and just kind of letting hundreds of thousands (maybe millions, no one knows) slip out of sight. That is not control freak behavior at all. Lazy, arrogant behavior more like it.
Rounds dropping out of the race? Ha, what are the SD dems on today?
Interesting. I think my support would depend on which Pressler we are taking about. He began as an upstart, moderately progressive Republican who took on the establishment (and Janklow), beating a Democrat by being grassroots oriented. I liked this Pressler. He had a lackluster, if moderate, reputation in Congress until he began seeking leadership positions during the Reagan era. Then he turned into a rabid faux-conservative, and a kind of hypocritical dunce. He gave us a bad Telecommunications bill. I loathed this Pressler. After getting beat by Tim Johnson, he had a more reflective period and returned to more moderate stances--ie., he returned to what he once was.
Which Pressler are you going to get? I suspect Pressler's time has come and gone, and he no longer fits into a political niche that's large enough for him to win.
All of you SD dems need to register as independents or republicans so you can vote against Rounds in the primary.
Rounds wasn't flying the state plane because he's a control freak, Nick. He was flying the state plane because he's a sucker for anything free. As a pilot, those flying hours are very expensive to come by if you are buying them yourself. Sitting up there in the cockpit with professional pilots is pretty darn good training and experience that most people have to pay for. Just another perk of being governor - like that fancy new mansion, and the game lodge, and the governor's hunt Suburban, and the housekeepers in orange uniforms. You ever consider running for governor, Nick? It looks like a pretty good gig.
When you look at what the current South Dakota GOP Senate candidate field has to offer in the areas of talent and political stances, I can't help but think that Pressler may serve as a well-needed breath of fresh air. The present SD GOP Senate primary candidate crop currently is mighty stale.
Jenny,
Dems aren't saying Rounds will drop out, Stace has been saying that.
Rounds cronies and PP the hired political hitman are doing the dirty politics 101 by just attacking Stace Nelson relentlessly. Curious they sure don't attack Dr. Bos much with all her obvious political liabilities. Stace must really be a threat and I'm curious as to how much traction the Nelson campaign has gained against Rounds. What are the real numbers? DWC certainly has shown it lack credibility so I can't go off their numbers. I would think Stace could use those attacks by the establishment to his advantage showing what a threat he is. If your comfortable with EB-5 being business as usual, cronyism, and various other mismanaged state affairs vote for Rounds. If you don't vote Stace in the Republican primary.
I may not agree with where Stace stands politically but I get the impression he's honest. Regarding the Robocalls I don't know much about that but I wonder where it's all coming from. Is it Rounds and his supporters and those paid to do so who have the most to lose?
I just don't think Pressler will be much of a factor in the race based on his past record. He can help bring up good issues but beyond that I highly doubt he will perform well in votes.
Roger, I hadn't heard that from the Nelson campaign or seen it. Where are you getting your information? The only source I heard that claimed that was Gordon Howie's blog.
Oops Disgusted! I believe you be right.
So does that mean that Jenny is correct and that Howie is a closeted Democrat? Who would have thunk it??
I hope Pressler does enter the race. Rounds has to be sitting on his hands thinking that his name is enough to get elected in the prom royalty vote that is politics. The only way he can lose is by talking (as seems to be how the GOP primary is playing out so far).
Pressler, also having a name recognized in SD, may well make people listen to actual positions to see who should warrant their vote - something I presume the Weiland campaign would also welcome.
Pressler's entrance may be the only hope of this being a campaign and not just a pageant.
Pressler's entrance isn't the problem-its the exit, the one he made from a meeting into a closet, mistaking it for the outside door. That was bad enough but then he didn't come back out for some time. We may draw whatever conclusions our experiences and prejudices will lead us to from this incident of days gone by.
I used to see that a couple times a year in my former business Cranky. The water closet(men's room) was at the end of the point of sale counter and young and old alike would take that exit. At least they had an excuse, better than a closet but half the time they would admit their mistake and we'd laugh about it. Not uncommon to have a few toddys in them for this to happen.
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You Dems should enjoy Sen Abourezk. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/26/the-senator-without-shame/
Did Bill Janklow get lost in the capital and attend the Democratic caucus on the first day in office?
What's the point of all this?
Did you expect Janklow to know as much in a day as Pressler did in years? Janklow at least immediately knew where he was. "I could tell by all the unhappy faces I was in the Democratic Caucus". It's just hard to be happy when you can't win an election Roger.
Les,
To be clear, Pressler is not fit for office because he stayed hidden in the toilet, and Janklow was qualified for office because he knew he was lost?
I am glad that you clarified this statement by Frankenfeld, "It will motivate both the Republican and Democrat candidates to more toward the reasonable middle."
However I have to disagree with part of your assessment, Mr Heidleberger. You wrote, "(ask real leftists outside South Dakota)". First of all there are no real leftists in South Dakota and secondly, since Kucinich was gerrymandered out in Ohio, there are none left at the national level. Just because pols and journalists label some Democrats as liberals or leftists, does not make it so. The national Democratic party, (and I guess by definition it happened here too) has moved so far to the right, that it is now to the right of Richard Nixon, who would look like a liberal were he alive and holding the same beliefs he did in the 1970s.
Lanny, I think you and I are on the same page about the paucity of real leftists. The national Democratic Party is far from extreme liberal. From a global perspective, President Obama has governed as a centrist. The ACA is still remarkably conservative compared to the health care solutions chosen by other nations. On that specific issue, Weiland's most radical proposal, opening Medicare to everyone as a public option, is still to the "right" of single-payer. Dennis Kucinich would be a good guy to ask for a map of South Dakota's politics; he'd agree that we have no extreme liberals on our ballot.
When I spent a lot of time and money campaigning for K before the 2004 Iowa caucuses and then here in SD only to have him turn down his planned campaign tour of SD prior to the SD primary, I got a chance to see how the rest of the Democratic party, denigrates any true liberal and of course when they do, the media jumps in with both feet and help to beat up that true liberal to as my Mom used to say she was going to do to me when I misbehaved, beat me to within an inch of my life. It was at that point that I realized that if I was going to have any voice in SD politics, I would need to register as a Republican, so that I could at least, vote for the best candidate in the primary since the Dems very seldom have a primary election, except in District 15.
Mr. H, is not your blog called "Real Liberal Stuff for South Dakota?"
It's real liberal.
A guy I know who works with taxes, grants and loans told me a couple of stories on when Rounds was governor, there was a couple of times where he would chew Rounds out for something and a week later would get a check stating it was a grant for something or another. Said if something happened out of the state grants department Rounds at the very least knew about it, and quite possibly was the one pulling the strings
Grudz, I'm not sure that even my liberal-leftism would pass muster with the Euro-left. I'm simply asking that we seek outside perspective for a reality check.
My goodness, Mr. H! If that is so and Daugaard is a liberal in all of Mr. Nelson's minions minds, can you imagine what that baker's dozen of narrow-minded guys and gal must think about the Euro-left?
That's kind of the point. The SDGOP has used and abused the word "liberal" into near meaninglessness, or at best, a synonym for "bad stuff." I use the label for culture-jamming purposes. But we need to chuck these labels and get to some pragmatic problem-solving. I wonder if that's the same thing Monsieur Pressler is thinking.
grudz old pal,
What is "your" definition of a liberal?
Wild eyed spending boys with goofy ideas on the home front, my friend. Wild eyed spending boys with socialistic tendencies.
It's the socialistic tendencies that scare me most, but the wild eyed part creeps me out a bit. And I would add it is the male libbies with the wild eyes, the female libbies mostly come off as dull-eyed and witted.
Ok grudz, now give me some examples of the "wild eyed spending boys". Is there a distinction between what libbies and conservies spend money on and who benefits in the end?
Do you truly believe socialism is an evil system?
Mr Cornelius, When you asked grudznick for the definition of a liberal, my first thought was of back in school when the teacher would ask for an example of the word we were defining. I am waiting breathlessly for grudznick's examples. I have certainly not seen one. If someone is going to cast our SF mayor as one because of his big spending, I will have to laugh, because his big spending is to the advantage of the corporatists not the poor. Let me please give you an example of what I would call liberal spending today. It would have been something that the local GOP would have pursued 20 to 30 years ago, but now that we have moved so far to the right they would not touch it. The high water in the past 15 to 20 years in the northeastern part of the state, has destroyed much of the infrastructure, roads and bridges to a large extent, to the point that much of the year milk trucks, school buses and everyday users of that infrastructure cannot use them. But instead of funding the reconstruction of said infrastructure, the legislature under the leadership of the last two governors has seen fit to give tax breaks to the Keystone pipeline and using tax dollars to promote the various wide eyed schemes, such as DM&E expansion, coal burning power plants, an oil refinery, CAFO dairy operations coming from European countries, (instead of more and smaller operations which might have kept some local kids at home) and of course the failed Beef plant.
Roger, Mr. Stricherz: you have no doubt learned the folly of responding to the ridiculous.
Lanny, my thoughts exactly. What would Governor Mickleson think of our party putting these hundreds of millions into a handful of projects, many failing, rather than scattering it to both rural and urban SD.
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So much of what has been, has been hijacked and with the new acceptance of cronyism/corruption for all, these new Dem and new GOP will continue to hijack. The shift continues. It appears you and Cory are seeing something thorough the light of Sibby. Hmmm, when pigs fly?
In my books, there are two different types of socialists. The people who push it seeking social equality and the corrupt politicians who push government involvement of tax payer dollars to "economic development" projects their crony friends and family can benefit from. Both are ideas that have been proven repeatedly to be failures, the former is more admirable even as it is deceptively destructive.
Just because Egg Roll & Where's Flip-Flop Rhoden claim to be conservatives as they push such programs, it does not make such actions conservative. By the very actions of departing from proven historic successful governmental measures, crony-capitalism is distinctly Un-Conservative.
Lanny, please call me Roger.
Whenever I ask a Republican to describe socialism, I usually get the same wide-eyed response that grudz offered, and usually with no specifics except for food stamps or Medicare, and now Obamacare.
I'm not convinced that the kind of infrastructure you talk about is socialism, it seems that it fits more with safety and national security. From my experiences it seems Republicans don't like funding necessary infrastructure is in order to balance state budgets, therefore it ranks low on their list of priorities.
The ever growing list of socialistic programs this country has and Republicans don't like to admit to are some of the following:
1. An agricultural industry that is totally subsidized by the government. How many ranchers and farmers do you know that take these tax dollars and complain that the poor buy potato chips and pop with SNAP benefits.
2. Tax breaks and credits for large corporations are also a form socialism, it provides them with the ability to not pay their fair share.
3. Government subsidizes to big oil, again they take and don't pay and hold Americans hostage with exorbitant gas prices.
These are just three examples of socialism that bother me and which Republicans consistently defend and support and don't want to talk about. These are socialistic programs that Republicans like.
I'm thoroughly convinced that tea party types don't have a clue about socialism. They link the word with Hitler, who was actually a dictator, and therefore think it is evil. It is likely that they never bothered to study how socialism works in other countries. Take a minute and visualize the American economy without some form of socialism. It would be devastating for ALL.
Republicans like to be the victims of Democrats and their wide-eyed spending, as per grudz, and once again don't like to admit their own spending and reckless ways. Conservatives have the motto, "I don't like socialism except when it benefits me".
Ag totally subsidized? Uneducated statement.
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Exorbitant fuel? Compared to what? Europe is twice the price for gasoline.
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Tax breaks for Corporations? All parties involved have been vigorously offshoring to promote Corps with zero US tax liability. I'd rather have Corps with tax breaks than no Corps at all.
What would the ag industry in this country be if it were not heavily subsidized? Government is paying farmers and ranchers to work.
Gas prices in this country are exorbitant, we don't live in Europe, do we? Unrealistic comparison.
Support for companies that get tax breaks is support of socialism and furthers the belief that those with resources don't have to pay their fair share.
Tell us what the government pays ranchers Roger?
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What price should you be paying for petrol? How about the price you should be paying for a pack of Marlboro's?
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Obviously unemployment fits your mentality as we've offshored most of our industries from textiles to steel.
Go stroke Pat, Les.
What do we pay ranchers? Conservation payments, insurance for starters.
Les, you apparently have no objection to fuel prices and support big oil because petrol cost more in Europe. Remember Les, big oil is subsidized by your government.
I have no idea as to cost of Marlboro's or tobacco products, enlighten me, as if that has any relevance at all. if people choose to smoke they pay the price, just as with alcohol.
Yes, thanks to Mr. Republican himself, Ronald Reagan, we have offshored most of our industries resulting in what we have today. And I always believe Republicans supported American capitalism.
As a rancher I'm still looking for my conservation payments and insurance you speak of Roger. Totally subsidized huh? I'm sure I could change my operation and find a payment somewhere.
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Roger you choose to call our petrol prices exorbitant. Europe isn't a good comparison. How do you know fuel is high if my comparisons don't work? You must be comparing "Made in China" under slave labor. What limited non renewable resource sought by the world economy is not ten times higher in price?
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While I never agreed with Reagonomics, it was Clinton the out sourcer in chief who paved the way for China to enter the WTO and the repeal of Glass Steagall setting us up for the theft of our country by Wall Street, Chinese factories and the banks. Our blue collar worker took it in the cheeks. You want to give some slave labor or a Corp tax break?
Les, Your last paragraph hits the nail squarely on the head. Too many Dems will look back at the sins of a Dem and give them absolution, but between Clinton's policies and our own Senator Tim Johnson and their part in the repeal of Glass Steagall, more financial damage has been done to the people of this country than anything else since the largesse and unregulation of the 1920s. Funny part is when Clinton's policies seemingly had things humming, I was cheering them on. Little did I know.
(Wiki)"William Philip "Phil" Gramm an American economist and politician, who has served as a Democratic Congressman (1979–1983), a Republican Congressman (1983–1985) and a Republican Senator (1985–2002) from Texas." Pretty much sums up the jackass that initiated Gramm/Leach for Clinton to sign into law, willing to whore for either party. Phil was also a proponent of free trade pitting the US against sweat shop labor at best. I believe the GOP controlled congress in 99 when Clinton signed his bill.
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The crimes less visible in the derivatives world were being noticed by Brooksley Borne who in the mid 90's as head of the CFTC was run aground by Treas Sec Rubin, Fed chair Greenspan and a Congress wholly bought and paid for. Just a part of the beginning of the end as we knew it in our financial world.
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And we continue to chase nickels while the dollars fly away.
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I specially like the $5000 plane fare double bookings in the case of the missing 32Mil right here at home.
Darn it Les, You had to remind me that at one time I admired Jim Leach. But you had another great quote, "And we continue to chase nickels while the dollars fly away."
It reminds me when I had my business there were two meat department managers in the same chain and the same town. I would see the one who wouldn't take a special that I would offer and then the other one would. THe second one would always say, that's just like Mike, to jump over twenty dollar bills to pick up nickels. Your example of the tickets is again spot on.