GOP spin doctor Pat Powers cobbles together an argument that South Dakota Democrats are still too liberal to win elections. He doesn't say one word about the actual ideological positions of any Democrat on the 2014 ballot; he just repeats the mantra that we Democrats need believe the same things as Republicans.
In other news, if Christians and Jews would just change to Islam, we'd have peace in the Middle East.
Alas, Pennington County Democrats chairman Mike Wilson thinks taking advice from Republican propaganda is a good idea:
"We maybe can't vote exactly how we feel every time, maybe we have to move our message and principles to the center," said Wilson. "'Where more people are. Maybe the candidates we choose need to be more to the center, maybe more moderate" [Alexandra Montgomery, "Republicans Sweep West River Seats; What's the Future of the Democratic Party?" KOTA-TV, 2014.11.05].
Excuse me, but havent Bill Clinton and Barack Obama already done that to our party, and haven't we South Dakota Democrats run away from even that successful centrism?
There are many reasons Democrats lost this midterm election and many things we South Dakota Democrats can do to win in 2016. Not among the top ten solutions is ideological capitulation.
Nor is an ideological purge in which Bill Fleming and I oust Chairman Wilson and other centrist fretters. Democrats need all hands on deck. To keep all hands on deck, we need to have a conversation.
I'd like to get together with Mike Wilson and with every other Democratic official and aspirant in South Dakota and ask them what they believe. Not what they believe the majority of South Dakotans believe, but what they themselves believe. I'd like to ask them just how liberal they think they are. I'd like to work through the list of the South Dakota Democratic Party's main political positions and ask which they support and which they reject. And then I'd like to ask, given whatever genuine ideological disagreements we uncover, whether they feel they can work within the parameters of the Democratic Party to topple South Dakota's one-party rule, whether we need to form a new party based on a new ideology, or whether we need to just give up and fight for reform and justice in Republican primaries.
The Republicans have convinced far too many Democrats to accept the Republican narrative:
- Liberals are evil!
- South Dakota Democrats are liberals!
- Conservatives are awesome!
- South Dakota Republicans are conservatives!
#1 is patently false. I have my doubts about #2 (is Medicare liberal? is paying teachers what they are worth liberal?), #3, and #4 (corporate welfare, dependence on federal funds to balance the state budget, government interference in education and women's health care...). As long as Democrats shy away from offering a counter-narrative, South Dakota voters will have no use for them.
Sounds like Wilson needs to change his voter registration to R. We need to stand up for what we believe, and show the electorate what we believe and what we will do for them if they give us a try. Sucking up to that conservative ass hoping for sloppy seconds isn't my cup of tea.
Cory, Last week as I read Nate Silver's five-thirty-eight piece referenced on this blog, "What's the Matter with South Dakota" I could not help but think that he had plagiarized the title from Thomas Frank's book from 2005, "What's The Matter With Kansas".
Having said that, I would say that Pat Powers and any other person pretending to be a political analyst is way off the mark in claiming that South Dakota or for that matter the Democratic party has gotten to be too liberal. Actually, I would say that the reverse is true.
Democrats have allowed conservatives to control the conversation in this country for far too long. As I pointed out in an earlier post on a different one of your blogs, Richard Nixon was to the left of our last three Democratic Presidents.
A case in point as relates to South Dakota. Conservatives and right leaning Democrats like to point to the defeat of SHS as proof that we are too liberal. There were two main reasons that SHS was defeated.
1. Healthcare for all as offered at least partially by the AHCA was not supported by Ms Herseth Sandlin. It certainly was not the bill that most true liberals wanted, but was at least a start to getting healthcare for all and also was the same bill that the Republicans had offered in the 1990s in answer to Hilary Clinton's proposal and also the one offered by the Republican candidate for the President in 2012, to his own citizens when he was Governor of Massachusetts. But that was too liberal for SHS.
2. There is a considerable anti war, peace group in South Dakota. By 2006, the American people had finally realized that the war in Iraq was completely wrong, and in spite of the fact that those of us in that peace faction asked her over and over to stop voting to fund the war, she not only would not vote that way, she ignored our many requests to meet with her.
It is a sad day in our country, if stopping unconscionable war and healthcare for all is too liberal for conservatives and even would be Democrats.
John T has a very good post on his blog about one of the big "benefits" of the last four decades of republican rule here. Addressing and offering real time fixes to one of the biggest problems in SD might be a damn good place to start.
The intransigent Republican screamers demand compromise but for them compromise is Democrats giving up important positions and moving a few steps closer to the right, at which time they step back a step or two. Just look at ObamaCare it started out as a market based proposal of the Heritage Foundation. Obama and the Democratic Party adopted it as a reasonable solution to the health insurance problem Republicans took their steps backward and started screaming that it was Communism in disguise.
They refuse to compromise and instead prefer the old bait and switch.
Nick, I believe we need to quit compromising, stand for what we believe. When they refuse to talk to us then let them live with their crap and let the public know under no uncertain terms what republican policy is doing to them. Pound it to the public relentlessly for the next two years.
"whether we need to form a new party based on a new ideology"
How about party who expose the liberal lies of both parties and becomes real with real people. The problem is getting around the influence of big money that gives the big government/big business crony capitalist ideology that is currently running the SDGOP an unfair advantage over the common folks.
And Lanny, for all that, if SHS announces for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2018, I am on her team 100%. I welcome SHS's work for our party, just as I welcome Mike Wilson to stick with us and help us win in 2016 and beyond.
Sibby, if you want to talk getting "real with real people," I welcome your repudiation of all your shibboleths and your focus on practical policy-making that the general electorate can understand and vote on. If that's what you want, then my South Dakota Democratic Party is the party for you. Join us.
Steve, why in the hell did you put liberal in front of lies in your post. That is how the dialogue moving everything further to the right gets going. You had a great post until you threw that "liberal" into it.
Big money is the problem, but it is not all liberal, in fact I would say that the big money on the Democratic side is neo-liberal.
'I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.' - Will Rogers
Good luck getting your meeting, Cory. Be careful what you wish for, brother. ;-)
30 Years of Conservative Nonsense, An Explainer
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/11/conservative-nonsense-political-history
That is your prerogative, Cory, but that is how the conversation keeps getting moved further to the right. I joined the Republican party, because there is no difference between the two parties, ideologically, when the Dems will support a SHS, or at the national level a Barak Obama and or a Hilary Clinton, who are both neo-liberals.
In South Dakota, being the Republican party is so much stronger, and usually has many more races in the primary, at least I get to choose the least worst of the two or in the case of the US Senate primary this Spring, the best of the four. At the time, I said that ideologically, Stace was probably the farthest from my point of view on most issues, but at least he was honest and would talk truth to power. He was also the only one that was believable on veterans issues. He listened to his constituents, and got the CAFO dairy operation in his area stopped. There was no fluff about Stace, and we missed a chance to elect someone whom we could trust.
I am a good example of Nate Silver's "What happened to South Dakota" but only in the context that Thomas Frank stated in his book, not in Nate Silver's analysis of the Senate race.
I like that comparison, though I think people would quickly find other reasons/excuses to cluster into us vs. them groups. There's plenty of tribal fighting in places like Libya and Afghanistan, where people are pretty much all the same religion (to say nothing of places like Ireland where everybody is Christian).
As you note, Clinton and especially Obama bent over backwards to implement Republican ideas in "bipartisan" policies, and you can see all the cooperation it got them. Too often we got bad policies out of the deal, and the Republicans still hated Clinton and Obama with a white-hot, teeth-gnashing fury. Of course they did. For conservatives, politics is an all-or-nothing team sport. Policy doesn't matter as much as hating the other team.
Democrats should stand up for their principles and let the chips fall where they may. Groveling and trying to be Republican-Lite is a sucker's game.
Good link Larry
The Blindman
Why isn't dependence on gubmint money to balance the state's budget not Socialism,just like the police and firefighters?
Lanny, yours is a viable alternative route, maybe even the most logical. Unless the R's open up their primary to Indy voters like the Dems have, or we Dems get our act together, the only real chance you'll get to vote help decide which candidate will win is to vote in the R primary.
Let's see if Cory and Wilson can put the party back together. If not, I just might start doing what you're doing. No sense beating a dead horse.
South Dakota will experience below-zero temps starting next week because he deserves it.
Pretty funny Larry, was that he or we? lol
South Dakota female, Lanny? That seems incomprehensible. Our yard in New Mexico and the robins flitting and chirping around it will be spared the brutal winter you people must endure.
During the primary, in which the D's had few if any to vote for, it was suggested a vote for the right folks in the GOP could make a difference. And believe it or not, thems was fightin words over here at Maddtown. Well, I guess Ya did get your candidates "primarried".
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Get used to it, in ten years we won't have a party system anyway.
Didn't realize that you lived there Larry. It is funny, because that is the number one place I have been researching for my move from my home state for the final time.
For the sake of our country, I hope you are right, Les.
Okay, I am out of here, at least for now. So I ask that in recognition of his herculean effort as regards the corruption in our State, will someone knowledgeable in media affairs, please submit Cory's name for the Pulitzer Prize, and for the rest of us, please if able hit the tip jar with a generous donation.
Some just dont get it. I gave my opinion a couple of days ago as to how the Ds could run better in 2016. I think I have been misunderstood.
I'm not saying the Demarcates in South Dakota have to change their beliefs in their principles. What I am saying is that they have to repackage those ideas into something that is easier for the middle of the road republicans to believe in.
You hardcore Ds are wanting to promote doing and saying the same damn things that lost this election. That's okay for those you dont have to convert, but apparently in SD that was about all that voted for those ideas.
Think of politics like your party is a restuarant. If the food, steaks, and seafood, doesn't taste right you wont hold on to any business. Now if you find the right cook, and their cooking the same steaks, and seafood, but using really good recipes, people will start eating there again. Now remember when a business gets run down that bad it takes time to build the customers back.
It takes time.
Thats the way the Demarcates are like in SD right now. Their blaming their own kind because they wont eat in their restuarant anymore, they blaim others that dont want to try the food, and they blame the new Caffè across town.
With a twenty point loss in this senate race isnt it time to admit that you arent effective in getting your parties message out. If you know you have good meat,"ideas," but nobody wants to eat your food, "listen," maybe you need a new executive chef. You need a person that thinks Demarcate but can talk Republican.
I'm going to say this one more time. South Dakota is like a 4-h calf, to get it where you want it to go, sometimes you have tp pull, sometimes you have to push, and sometimes you have to sweet talk, and most of the time a little bit of all of em.
The Blindman
Bill, Larry Pressler was a GOP plant inserted to distract from their flawed candidate: anyone believing otherwise is delusional.
Also, Bill D. the effect you reference isn't unique to SD. It was a bloodbath all over the country, and a lot of D's were packaged exactly as you suggest. Alison Grimes for example. And they lost by the same huge margins. Same thing happened to SHS v. Noem. The mistake you make, and I understand why, is that you assume, the R's can be reasonable. Not in these off years. Not when there's blood in the water, brother.
Well Bill, while I have enjoyed your poetry and your opinions on many subjects, immensely, I couldn't disagree with you more. The 54% turnout, and Corinna Robinsons talking on another thread about disaffected voters giving up and not voting, should tell you all that you need to know.
When it is the same old, same old with the Dems yielding to the Repubs on issues, people, as Corinna pointed out, become disaffected and say, why bother.
Some examples, first at the national level. In 2001, when we had just started to pay down the debt racked up under 8 years of Reagan and Bush I trickle down economics, Bush proposes a tax cut when nobody was asking for one and all were happy to be paying down that debt, both Daschle and Johnson voted to go along with the tax cut. When Bush asked to attack Iraq after 9-11, both Daschle and Johnson voted to approve. Then while fighting two wars, Bush asked to cut taxes again and again Daschle and Johnson voted to cut them.
At the local level, when Kathy Tyler challenged the legislature a year ago to start an investigation into EB-5, not one Democrat stood by her and the challenge went unmet. We still have no local investigation of EB-5, the Republicans targeted Kathy Tyler with money and false attacks and got her knocked out. If the rest of the Democrats had stood behind her last fall, there would have only been an attack on the party, which would have been business as usual. But the way it was, they didn't even have to attack her on EB-5, as I wrote they used cooked up charges on the way she had voted on bills.
As "Lar" said, "Bernie could have done more" and as I got my a$$ ate for saying, " Bern hid behind Tyler's skirt". You have no leadership and when that happens your frontline goes down easy as in losing the only leader you had with Tyler. The Dem party in Pierre without Tyler,...... hmmmm, ............ just crickets.
go back to the sixties and be a hippie fer christ' sake, if yer gonna yap at democrats.
get some creds.
Had Rep. Tyler talked about cannabis she would have brought more millennials into the race.
Well leslie, if you want to keep some of the Dems who were Dems in the 60s you better keep some of the cred from the 60s. A lot of those hippies who were Dems in the 60s made their money and now are Republicans so that they can protect that money with tax cuts and removal of inheritance taxes etc.
mike Wilson's pay check: 0
Bill, I'm not assuming that the Rs on the fringe are reasonable, that would be nieve. And i understand that the whole country is feeling the same thing right now. But unless your goal is to force those left of center in the Rs party to slide further to the right, and pull moderate Ds with them. You better find a new way to get your message across.
Lanny, I'm not talking about yelding to the Rs on anything here. When their wrong stand up and try to knock em down. What I am saying is that you have to change the way you sell that message of the demacratic party. Its not just what you say, its how you say it. Remember these are the same people that got stuck trying to determine what the definition of "is" is.
The Blindman
Leslie, my family was in SD right after statehood. I just left a ranch that was in my family for 100 years, and I have been a registered D since I registered for the draft and to vote on my 18th birthday. I lived in SD for 61 years. I'm building a green business where i am right now that wouldnt have been possible if I stayed in SD. I'm doing my part here how about you? What are your creds?
The Blindman
yeah lanny, I remember all the friends over the years who sold out for wealthy positions as repubs. their youthful idealism was phony, but I can point to a dozen or two here in the hills livin' the life now as a result.
dems will figure this out, if it is possible in SD.
""""""go back to the sixties and be a hippie fer christ' sake, if yer gonna yap at democrats.""""" I bring it the best inya, Leslie? You're an attorney and I'm a plumber. Poop runs downhill and when you keep trying to push it uphill, you get it on you. Not only do you look bad all covered in it, you smell like manure.
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I also believe I have every right to be upset with your party for not standing up for Tyler. I did.
I don't kno les and grudz but I don't like em. could be wrong about them. they were bitchin at bill f. about the 60s so that's what that was.
high draft number or I wouldn't be here. similar family back ground, built the states roads since mule & wagon days. retired lawyer, built rapid citys water resources for the future and worked with the tribes. divorces, suicide, lots a fun. never thought SD was redeemable. still don't.
oh, old hippie, musician. always a dem.
les, yer crack is showin'! we should meet, clear the air, you always confuse me.
"""they were bitchin at bill f. about the 60s so that's what that was.""" what ru smoking and where did Ya read that, honey? Where've you been for the last seven inglorious years of my relationship with bf? It's on and off like a marriage.
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I'm kinda concerned for you leslie! You burn ur toast this morning?
Not always, leslie.
LOL. Yur 'cracking' me up thinking about a job we did for a judge, leslie. He was telling me how it should be done under the counter in my stuffed in position and I told him about poop running downhill. Not to be outdone, he turned away, stopped, gassed me at face level and walked away, I'm guessing, somewhat satisfied.
Btw, it was judge Leslie H, long gone and a hard one to get the last word on.
More for Les:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maG5McPKwrg
Because more is Les:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJOqjh1hrBw
http://geekologie.com/2012/07/clever-shirt-turns-plumbers-buttcrack-in.php
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Kinda the new style for us guys.
we disbar judges for that, well, republicans don't.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/rachel-maddow-chris-christie_n_4572367.html
If my party is forced by Republicans to move more toward to the center we may just as well concede South Dakota to an elected dictatorship controlled by Pat Powers, Troy Jones, Mike Rounds et al.
Messaging is a huge problem for Democrats and Republicans capitalized on all those dirty word like liberal, socialism, fascism, communist, abortion, etc.
The problem isn't getting the message to Democrats, we understand, it is getting the message to low information Republican voters that take advantage of all those socialist programs Republicans tell them to hate.
What's your dirty word, Rogger.....
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Leslie H was as red with no complexity as you can get, leslie. Not hard to figure out. When I mentioned hanging judge to him one time he stated, I had boys who didn't get a shower or their boots off for 60 days(ww2) and when I came home it was pretty easy to give someone a year or two for not following the law.
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I couldn't disagree, though, when he ran me off a muddy road in my teen years, got out and chewed my butt, drove off and left me in the mud, I realized my position and never let him get me into his court.
Roger, any word on whether or not those "provisional" ballots from Oglala Lakota county (formerly known as Shannon) are going to be counted?
Not a word Bill, I've made a few inquiries but have not heard back. I don't have slightest idea what the delay really is.
Bill,
I just received an email from Kevin Killer announcing that he has been reelected, now I'm wondering if the Pine Ridge and Oglala ballots have now been counted.
On the SOS site, it looks like there are still at least 307 provisional ballots outstanding in Shannon County, Roger. I'll keep checking.
An informative Salon article on Friday identified races where advocating positive progressive economic policies provided victories for progressive Democrats, the point being that submitting to Republican narratives is a mistake.
http://www.salon.com/2014/11/07/connecticuts_crucial_lesson_democrats_can_win_when_they_listen_to_progressives/?source=newsletter
Seems like we need to find our common ground so we can rebuild from the ground up. And in the interest of honesty, I've heard a lot of discussion and ideas the last couple of days so if I share someone's idea here, it's not plagiarism but just getting the ideas out there.
We have accomplished and stand for many good things. We need to use the foundation of our good record to build a new plan for our party. Selling out or compromising has only weakened that foundation. We should have stood WITH Obama AND those candidates that stood their ground for the principles we espouse.If we didn't have strong enough candidates it may be because we didn't stand behind the strong ones we've had in the past.Or maybe we're not supporting them enough when they get the courage to run.
Every Democratic candidate on every level should have financial support, tech support and advice on how to organize a campaign from the moment they express an interest. To build an organization that can do that, we as individuals have to get involved on a local level. We need to start doing fund raising now so people can give small regular donations every month instead of an onslaught of begging weeks before each election.
Then we need to get off our duffs and start PARTICIPATING in our local governments. How many of us attend City Council, School Board or County Commission meetings? I'll be honest, I've been to one Commission mtg. and none of the others. But that's about to change!! If we won't make the effort to listen and share our ideas on that level, then we can't expect to be heard in Pierre! And participation is not just putting a ballot in a box! Observe our elected officials doing their jobs and challenge them.
Then go to rallies and events and meet candidates. We even need to meet and talk to people from the other party. They claim they listened to the American people. Well, let's make sure they really are listening!
As Susan said, "We can do better." We have nothing to be ashamed of unless we degenerate into petty bickering between our selves instead of building a cohesive party that represents our successes and strengths and that wins elections. McGovern did it back in the '50's when there even more Republicans! So we can do this!!This election is over. Let's learn what we can and begin anew with no more doubts! Tuesday night I said, "We are not defeated, we just haven't won yet!!!