Kudos to Ken Santema for making the drive out to Ipswich for Monday's District 23 GOP House candidates forum. His summary of the candidates' responses to audience questions is a useful guide for voters in the sparse but sprawling north central district.
Of all the instructive policy statements staked out by the candidates, Mr. Powers chooses to focus on the vague partisan snark issued by Democratic Party apostate Dale Hargens. District 23 voters frankly don't care about that. They want to know which of the five candidates can best represent their views on property taxes, education, and social issues.
Santema notes that all five candidates—Hargens of Miller, Michelle Harrison of Mobridge, Gene Toennies of Cresbard, Larry Nielson of Tulare, and incumbent Rep. Justin Cronin of Gettysburg—appear to view economic development as a priority for government. Hargens said his departure from the Democratic Party came because of a "surge to the left" by our party, but I remain fascinated at supposedly free-market Republicans' ongoing surge toward leftist government intervention in the economy.
On education, all five candidates appear to defer the question of education funding to local control... because legislators would hate to be responsible for advocating the tax increases necessary for schools to end South Dakota's humiliation of teachers with the lowest salaries in the nation.
Santema reports some predictable fuss and feathers about Common Core. But someone phrased the Common Core question perfectly, asking the candidates what they thought would happen if there suddenly were no standards in public education. Harrison, Toennies, and Hargens gave the right answer: teachers would go right on teaching, proving there is no need for top-down standards and political reform movements like Common Core and No Child Left Behind.
On gay marriage, Nielson appears to have offered the greatest offense, saying (in Santema's paraphrase) that gay marriage is "nothing but a topic brought forth to expand benefits...." Yeah, because all you non-heterosexuals aren't looking for equality or justice or respect; you just want your partner's pension, and that's just evil. We should get rid of all those greedy spousal benefits for everybody!
On the hopeful side, Harrison said gay marriage and abortion are morality issues and that (reports Santema) "she doesn’t believe the government has the right to choose these issues for people." Hey, Charlie Hoffman! Can you get your neighbors to recognize the true conservatism in that statement?
Alas, Santema notes that all five candidates said they support the Keystone XL pipeline (Hargens on the false assertion that TransCanada's export of tar sands oil to China will promote our energy independence) and that not one addressed the issue of property rights and eminent domain that ought to raise Republican ire over Keystone XL.
Thank you for that report, Ken!
It would be nice to see Republican primary voters turn the lights out on Dale Hargens.
Nielson seems like the best of the bunch to me, even if he is directly connected to Skonjberg. Harrison and Hargens are both blatantly lying about being pro-life.
While not pertinent to Dist 23, Gardner Gray (who authored the commentary re: PowerTech reprinted last week in Madville Times) is now listed officially among the candidates for House Dist 30.
Good to see Gardner official, Curt!
Bree, Nielson is a Rounds man? What's his connection?
I'm assuming he's the same Larry Nielson appointed to Heartland with Skonjberg.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-last-shot-20140423
I think Dale Hargens was a couple years behind me in high school. I haven't seen him for at least 30 years, so I know nothing about him now. His family have been been Hand County farmers for at least two generations. I am disappointed that he left the Democratic Party.
It seems to be a common assumption that one must be in total agreement with a certain political party or leave it. I disagree. I am a Democrat because it is nearest my political beliefs.
Ms. Geelsdottir, that makes you a young woman albeit a young woman in a disturbed and lost political faction. Young Mr. Hargens is probably deranged from all his time leading libbies in the legislatures.