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Chuck Todd: Mike Rounds “Slight”

If I wrote headlines the way Pat Powers writes headlines, that's how I'd summarize Chuck Todd's interview with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Weiland this week.

Actually, Todd called Republican candidate Mike Rounds the "slight favorite in the general election." But chopping context for a choice quote is much more fun, isn't it?

Powers headlined the Todd–Weiland interview with "Chuck Todd to Rick Weiland: 'Too Liberal for South Dakota'."

Chuck Todd did indeed say those words to Rick Weiland. But as we would expect from an interviewer, Todd was using the statement as a question to draw Weiland's response. Let's read the full exchange, which comes as Todd follows up on Weiland's discussion of his face-to-face, door-to-door, Peever-to-Piedmont campaign strategy:

TODD: In a small state, I buy that that can work. But I'm sure, and I know, and I've heard this from other Democrats, they say Rick Weiland, nice guy, he's too liberal for South Dakota.

WEILAND: I just don't buy it. Strong ideas, sitting down with people, looking them in the eye, and talking about why you're running and why we need to take our country back from the big money special interests, that'll trump the big money and the "he's too liberal for South Dakota". You've seen it happen throughout the history of the Midwest states: Tom Harkin in Iowa, Tom Daschle in South Dakota, Hubert Humphrey in Minnesota. There is a demonstrated path to victory for people who are willing to get out there, work hard. To me, I said the other day, it's a three-word plan: relentless hard work. Go out and visit with the people of your state. And while I'm doing that, Chuck, and I've been into these towns, my likely opponent who you talked about is out shaking down big money in New York and Texas. I think that's going to win this campaign for me [Chuck Todd interviewing Rick Weiland, MSNBC: The Daily Rundown, 2013.02.27].

From that exchange, Powers might as easily have created the following headlines:

  • Todd: Weiland Campaign Strategy "Can Work"
  • Weiland: Rounds Choosing Big Money over Small Towns
  • Weiland Refutes "Too Liberal" Argument with Historical Empirical Examples of Midwest Liberal Victories (that one's even too long, the way Pat likes his headlines)

Todd provides only one example of a policy that might cause individuals: he gets Rick Weiland to say that the Affordable Care Act doesn't go far enough. But Weiland makes clear that the big additional step he wants us to take in health care reform is Medicare E, Medicare for Everybody, not as a single-payer system, but as a public option in good old competition with private insurance. Weiland says Medicare is not too liberal or radical for South Dakota. He says it's a policy that none of its 140,000 South Dakota recipients would give up.

People like Medicare. It's simple. I talked to a woman in a café in Wilmot who said it took her ten minutes to sign up for Medicare [Rick Weiland to Chuck Todd, 2014.02.27].

Chuck Todd shows he's just testing hypotheses for interview purposes, not declaring Weiland too liberal, with a subsequent question about the dynamics of a Rounds-Weiland-Pressler three-way. Once again invoking "people I talk to in South Dakota," Todd posits that Weiland may not be liberal enough for the most liberal activists of the South Dakota Democratic Party, who would prefer Pressler over Weiland for having endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

People in South Dakota who talk to Chuck Todd, please stand up.

Hello? Anyone?

O.K., I'm not seeing anyone jump up... but that's o.k. I can understand you might want to keep it to yourself if you're saying anything as silly as that to Chuck Todd to confuse a national television audience.

Find me the 100 most liberal activists in the South Dakota Democratic Party. Ask them which is greater: the amount of help Larry Pressler gave to Barack Obama with his two endorsements (liberal activist Doug Wiken questioned their significance), or the amount of help Rick Weiland will give to Barack Obama by helping him hold the Senate and stanch the tide of bad legislation from the GOP House. Any liberal activist who picks the former and votes for Pressler over Weiland on that basis needs to step out of the hookah lounge and get some mind-clearing subzero air.

Weiland says simply that facing a former Republican Senator and a former Republican governor will work to the advantage of the only Democrat on the ballot. If anyone in South Dakota talking to Chuck Todd believes otherwise, they must be hanging out in the 24 towns out of 311 that Weiland hasn't reached yet. Rick will get to them: he says he's going to complete his every-town tour and then do it all over again.

Rick Weiland doesn't think Mike Rounds is slight; that's why Rick is campaigning so hard. But Rick doesn't think that Medicare is too liberal for South Dakota. He doesn't think fighting big money is too liberal for South Dakota. And he doesn't believe Pressler is liberal enough to win over the Democratic base in South Dakota.

10 Comments

  1. Rorschach 2014.03.01

    Mike Rounds was already trying to run out the clock before 2014 even began. He thinks he's got such a big lead that all he has to do is - nothing. Just hide & wait. He'll wait out his primary opponents until they are gone. Then he'll be smilin' Mike against Weiland. It has worked for him before. Why wouldn't it work again? His grecian formula must have teflon qualities because nothing sticks to him. But I think the narrative will change in the fall. I can't wait to find out.

  2. Nick Nemec 2014.03.01

    Powers is the worst kind of political tool, unashamed to use whatever distortions and misrepresentations necessary to win an election.

  3. Chris S. 2014.03.01

    When Chuck Toddler first started his political analysis gig, I had hopes he might be decently insightful. Unfortunately he turned into a garden variety hack dispensing the same lazy Beltway "common wisdom" you can get from any other hack on the teevee machine.

  4. Vincent Gormley 2014.03.01

    Tall men suffer from "piled on high" syndrome.

  5. Winston 2014.03.01

    Show me a poll where Pressler takes far more votes from Rounds than Weiland, then I will show you a easy scenario of how Weiland can win this. Otherwise the following has to take place for Weiland to win:

    In recent years, with the exception of Sandlin in '10, SD Democratic candidates have garnered about 36 to 42% of the vote in statewide races, and on a good day with Pressler not taking too much from that base is where Weiland is right now. Most likely given the Pressler factor Weiland is probably right now at about the 34 to 37% range. At this level it becomes very "iffy" for Weiland. My guess is that Rounds is at the 44 to 54% percent range right now. In order for Weiland to win, Rounds needs to drop 10 points and I think that can only be done not through the efforts of Weiland or Pressler, rather only with the help of more damaging EB-5 allegations and without these additional allegations then Rounds will win this.

    Assuming these additional allegations surface then I believe a vast percentage of those lost 10 points for Rounds will default to Pressler as long as Pressler's political presence lingers on, making this a very tight race. Only in this tight race with Weiland holding onto his base as the "Liberal Candidate" can Weiland possibly win.

    There is a marital dance going on between the Weiland and Pressler camps right now. I am not talking about a conspiracy rather I am talking about a relationship out of necessity or fate. Pressler forces Weiland to play the liberal card which benefits Pressler and Weiland needs Pressler to soak up the moderate and conservative undecideds which Weiland can never reach. Especially, if Weiland is going around the state dubbed by the media as the "Liberal Candidate" - if Weiland really wants to win this that is. But there comes a point where Pressler's relevance and growth in this race next fall could become a problem for Weiland with Pressler as the "Moderate Candidate" with Democratic enrodes and at that point for Weiland the marital dance will have to end or should we say the gloves will need to come-off for Weiland against Pressler and not Rounds so much. Whoever has the better timing in ending this dance between Weiland and Pressler will win this as long as Rounds's numbers are significantly lowered over the next eight months due to further EB-5 allegations.

  6. Bob Klein 2014.03.01

    Word missing in this clause? " Todd provides only one example of a policy that might cause individuals: "

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