David Newquist is provoking all sorts of good discussion with his diagnosis of South Dakota as hopeless for young progressives. Heidi Marttila-Losure of Dakota Fire has weighed in with her optimism. Now Zach Crago, deputy exec of the South Dakota Democratic Party, offers his hope and encouragement to young South Dakotans of all parties.

• Crago sees hope in Chamberlain students working to get a Lakota honor song included in their high school graduation ceremony and not giving up, even though they face a recalcitrant school board that exemplifies the attitudes that cause Dr. Newquist's pessimism.
• Crago sees hope in Dannika Nash's popular and thought-provoking call for marriage equality and civil dialogue.
• Crago sees the SDDP's new Young Elected Legislative Leaders program inspiring South Dakota kids think about good policy solutions for South Dakota's problems.

Notably, Crago does not feel the need to rip Newquist a new one. He calls Newquist's essay "thought-provoking and intimate." He says South Dakota is fortunate to have critical thinkers like Newquist. And he offers a civil, thought-provoking, and passionate response to say that yes, we've got problems, but South Dakota's young people also have the ganas to solve them.

Believe in your capacity to make South Dakota a better place right now. Because I see people like you doing it everyday [Zach Crago, "The Kids Are All Right," SDDP blog, 2013.05.23].

I learned from Linda Sandness in my SDSU P.E. camping class that the first thing you need in a survival situation is a positive mental attitude. Crago's got that. Fellow Dems,  with attitudes like that, we can survive and thrive.

M. Michael Rounds's hiring of Dick Wadhams as consultant to his U.S. Senate campaign tells me four things:

1. Team Rounds's embrace of Wadhams's politics of personal destruction demonstrates a commitment to making me use the s's combination far more than I want to.
2. Team Rounds apparently thinks Wadhams's effectiveness back in 2004 in getting John Thune elected outweighs his more recent failures in Virginia and Colorado.
3. Team Rounds is hoping Kristi Noem wears the same blinders and steers clear of tangling with this brawler.
4. Team Rounds will shortly convene a faux-blogstorm like the one he had Thune's paid advisors confabulate in 2004.

Now, if we can just keep Team Weiland from hiring Lowell Feld....

Photo of 2/3 page ad calling on South Dakota Legislature to reverse its decision to spend tax dollars on ALEC dues and travel expenses, Brookings Register, 2013.05.22

As of this early morning, 791 people have signed this online petition protesting our Legislature's use of tax dollars to pay dues to the crony-capitalist American Legislative Exchange Council for all 105 of its members and their travel expenses to ALEC meetings.

Turn to Page A7 of yesterday's Brookings Register, and you will find 162 South Dakotans signing on to an advertisement purchased to make that protest to the offline public. The signatories include five Democratic South Dakota legislators: Reps. Kathy Tyler (4-Big Stone City), Scott Parsley (8-Madison), Paula Hawks (9-Hartford), Karen Soli (15-Sioux Falls), and Pat Kirschman (15-Sioux Falls). Also signing are a few past legislators, legislative candidates, and a couple of bloggers who have given ALEC's capture of our Legislature some attention.

Below is a full PDF of the protest sheet. Feel free to share it and the online petition with all of your online friends. If you'd like to see the ad in your local paper, give Phyllis Cole-Dai in Brookings a shout, chip in some cash, and make it happen!

Feud-schmeud! (I think that's a farm supply company in Hecla.)

Getting the consultants he hired to put an article about his progressive cred in the Huffington Post is no big deal for the Rick Weiland Senate campaign. Getting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to draw daylight between Washington Democrats and Weiland is:

In a brief interview last week, Reid didn’t hide his frustration with the way the South Dakota race is shaping up.

“We’re going to have a candidate there; we don’t have it yet,” Reid told POLITICO.

When asked whether he would ever back Weiland, Reid was emphatic in his opposition.

“He’s not my choice,” Reid said [John Bresnahan and Manu Raju, "Harry Reid, Tom Daschle Feud over S.D. Senate Seat," Politico, 2013.05.20].

Imagine Weiland lining up the best of both worlds. He tacks left to win the support of the truer blue anti-Blue Dog South Dakota Dems. Yet he gets the power elite in D.C. to poo-poo him, allowing him to tout his independent streak and let less partisan South Dakota voters know that he's their guy, not the creature of some Washington machine. He defuses the predictable GOP attacks that will put his face next to cardboard cut-outs of their national level Tea-Party bogeyDems.

Senator Reid's crankiness is no big deal. If it's real, it's a sign that he's letting some Washington power-game snarkiness cloud his view of the facts on the ground and of any real understanding of what's happening in South Dakota. Weiland may not be Reid's choice, but even if Pat O'Brien goes nuts and enters the race, Weiland is South Dakota Democrats' choice.

David Newquist hopes his one-year-old grandson can find his way out of Aberdeen and South Dakota. Dr. Newquist deems South Dakota hopeless for Democrats of ambition and good conscience. As usual, his full essay is worth reading, as it ties many issues together. Here are some key passages:

...South Dakota is mired down by prejudicial, bigoted attitudes, and people who want productive and contributory lives come to the realization that they must either move or resign themselves to hoping that they can make changes that make such lives possible.

...Accomplishments in academics and professional life outside of South Dakota are lethal, particularly if those places carry the aura of prestige. Many South Dakotans hate accomplishment and performance that exceed anything that might raise the level of expectations in South Dakota.  The GOP has been successful in fanning that resentful sense of inferiority into a political rage that wins elections.  If you hold degrees from institutions that demonstrate excellence and you manage to accomplish things in high places, you have committed the unforgivable sin against South Dakota.  Unless the state needs someone of such attainment and accomplishment to go to Washington to bolster the federal subsidies on which the state depends for its existence, it will not elect such a person to Congress.

...And there is the matter of opportunity in South Dakota.  The Governor actually went to the Mall of America to try to recruit young people to the state.   There are number of groups touting life in South Dakota and attempting to lure young people to return.  I spent the past week with  a large number of young people who have left South Dakota.  When telling them of the efforts to lure young people, the inevitable reply is, "To do what?"  One of the emigrants said it was her intention to return, but after the elections of 2004 and 2010, she said the state showed an aspect of life that is simply too discouraging.  She is among those who started her education in the state, but finished out-of-state.  She said there is no opportunity in the state to use her degree, and the fact that she earned hers out-of-state would always be a demerit.  She will build her life where she has opportunity to do so [David Newquist, "Where Are All the Young Democrats?" Northern Valley Beacon, 2013.05.20].

I sometimes feel like we South Dakota Democrats are bowling alone. Can we Dems get a league together when culture and demographics and crony-corporate political money keep busting our balls?

I invite my readers to submit their signs of hope for building a state where Dr. Newquist would not be afraid to see his grandson live and work.

Andrew Sullivan posts the following chart of real GDP showing that by April 2012, the U.S. economy had recouped its losses from the recession, while the U.K. and Europe had not:

Europe has pursued austerity. President Obama has tried to block the GOP's push for similar policies.

So Mitt Romney was right while being wrong: we most certainly don't want to be like Europe.

It's not plagiarism; it's satire.

I love it when the far out tools of the crony-capitalist right pooh-pooh the solid blogging I bring to you, oh faithful readers.

That’s coming from unnamed SD Democrats. Not me. And I’ll continue to point out the reality that Weiland is a shill. An overcoat draped over an empty seat.

A placeholder in the same tradition that Democrats fill many other races in South Dakota politics. And that’s coming from the other team [Pat Powers, "Democrats admitting that Weiland is potentially a mere placeholder for Brendan Johnson," Dakota War College, 2013.05.18].

Because there’s nothing more fun than parsing the evasive phoneyness of his words. One. At. A. Time:

To further flog his latest propaganda obsession, pooh-poohing Rick Weiland's candidacy as a fake, Powers points to page 2 of an AP article by Bill Barrow and Thomas Beaumont that discusses Democratic Party divisions in South Dakota and Georgia. Powers picks the closing of the article as the big news, since it reinforces his preferred narrative:

Weiland, meanwhile, quickly entered the race, in part to keep Herseth-Sandlin out, a sign of tension between the moderate and liberal wings. Weiland, who lost to Herseth-Sandlin in the 2004 House primary, is a close Daschle ally.

Brendan Johnson, also a Daschle ally, would not challenge Weiland, especially in a state where successful Democrats are rare and clubby. However, Weiland, while a seasoned party operative, would likely bow out, should the younger Johnson assess the race over the summer and decide to enter in the fall.

That scenario becomes more probable should the race for the Republican nomination become contested, South Dakota Democrats said [Bill Barrow and Thomas Beaumont, "Dems Senate Campaigns Marked by Internal Battles," AP, 2013.05.18].

From that one passage, Powers concludes that Democrats are admitting that the rumor he is selling is true.

Oh, wait, read that headline: not true-true. Just potentially true.

A bit too eager to find accompaniment to his own shower-singing, Powers links to the end of the article, hoping you won't read the beginning of the article:

In the contest for retiring Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson's South Dakota seat, Democrats' preferred candidate now appears to be Rick Weiland, once a top aide to former Sen. Tom Daschle and twice an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. Weiland launched his bid, with Daschle's backing, amid clamoring about Herseth-Sandlin and Johnson's son, Brendan, a U.S. attorney. State Democrats now say the younger Johnson likely won't run [Barrow and Beaumont, 2013.05.18].

A reminder to Powers, who makes clear with every rumor and press release he posts that he does not understand the rules of quality journalism: in normal journalism, the items placed first in the article are more important than the items placed at the end. The "South Dakota Democrats" whom Barrow and Beaumont get to speculate on hypotheticals at the end of their article say up front that the likely scenario is the exact opposite of what Powers is trying to make you believe: Weiland is the preferred candidate, and Johnson is not running. That's exactly what Rick Weiland has said. That's exactly what I say. That's exactly what logic and evidence say: throwing Rick Weiland in as a placeholder for Brendan Johnson at this point does not put any Democrat in a stronger position to run against Rounds, Noem, or Nelson for Senate in 2014.

And that's exactly the logic and evidence to which Pat Powers desperately avoids offering a response.

Speaking of putting the important information in a story first, this latest Dakota War College effort to manufacture a story and attack any Democrat who steps forward to run for office bears out the thesis that South Dakota Republicans hold about Dakota War College. (I've heard South Dakota Republicans say the following, so I get to cite them as a source and thump my chest as being right about my preferred narrative, right?) Pat Powers is not an authentic blogger. He is a paid shill for the leaders of Republican Party. Look at his list of sponsors: Dennis Daugaard, John Thune, the South Dakota Republican Party, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Click Rain Elect, the only private company sponsoring DWC, works for and is run by Republicans.

That’s coming from unnamed SD Republicans. Not me. And I’ll continue to point out the reality that Powers is a shill. An overcoat draped over an empty head.

A placeholder in the same tradition that Republicans have filled other spaces in the South Dakota blogosphere with paid propaganda quietly coordinated by Republican candidates. And that’s coming from the other team.

Update 10:49 MDT: The DC press and Pat want you to believe that unnamed South Dakota Democrats see Weiland as a placeholder whose entry into the race drove Stephanie Herseth Sandlin out. The DC press and Pat clearly aren't talking to named South Dakota Dems who are tight with both Weiland and SHS:

People on both sides of the Democratic divide were doubtful.

“Rick was in the race. Was that a consideration in some way? Maybe it was,” said Ryan Casey, a leader in the “Draft Brendan” movement. “I think the biggest things were exactly what she said in making her announcement, that she wants to spend time with her family.”

Judy Duhamel, a former chairwoman of the South Dakota Democratic Party and a close Herseth Sandlin ally, also downplayed Weiland’s role.

“If she felt the right thing to do was to run, she would have been 100 percent in there,” Duhamel said. “I don’t think any candidate in a primary would have been threatening to her” [David Montgomery, "Dearth of Star Power Hinders S.D. Democrats," that Sioux Falls paper, 2013.05.19].

Pat Powers pumped out three blog posts in twelve hours to promote the rumor that Rick Weiland is simply a placeholder candidate for Brendan Johnson. Powers offers no hard evidence to support this assertion.

The idea that Weiland declares himself a candidate and declares Johnson not, just to boost Johnson's electoral chances, makes no sense. But if you're going to believe in rumors, at least base them on some objective evidence...

...like Weiland's ineffective campaign website. This piece of Tumblr junk (redundant?) carries a blank banner with "people for rick weiland" in lowercase letters. Lowercase? You do not run for United States Senate in lowercase.

The absence of capitals is not as alarming as the absence of an effort to get capital. Nowhere on this one-page website does Weiland ask for your money. He provides no "Donate" button. He doesn't even provide a contact form or an e-mail address that would allow anyone to say, "Rick! I got money! How do I send it to you?"

Join me at the armchair for some quarterbacking:

If I decide to run for Senate, before I call the press or drop the Twitter bomb, I go buy my five or ten favorite domain names, point them all toward HeidelbergerKicksRoundsButt.com, and put up a nice neat WordPress website with Howdy, Bio, Issues, Contact, Volunteer, and Donate pages. At the top of every page, I put my bright ActBlue widget to raise funds. And yes, I use capital letters.

Then, just as David Montgomery says, "Hello?" I flip the Web switch, and my website is ready to ride that first burst of press attention and Google juice to early donor buy-in. Folks come to my website during those first ten days after I announce wondering, "Who's this character, and should I give him money?" and my website is ready to tell them, "Here's who I am, and heck yes, you should send me money!" And when I get my first $5000 in campaign contributions by Friday (come on, progressive crusaders! money where mouth is!), I'm ready to hire someone to make my website look really good by next Friday.

But wait a minute: let me get this silly Pat Powers propeller beanie off my head. Weiland's failure to take these basic Web steps doesn't substantiate any rumor of wily Weiland wishy-washiness or backroom Brendan monkey business. It just suggests Weiland hasn't run a campaign since 2002, back when campaign websites were just becoming a really big deal.

Candidate Weiland has set up an ActBlue page; now he just needs to add the widget to the website and start banging the kettle in every e-mail and letter he sends. We can (constructively!) critique his effectiveness at campaigning, but Pat's going to need some actual evidence to show that Weiland isn't really campaigning.

By the way, Rick Weiland has filed his statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. He signed that document and FedExed it on May 8, the day he announced. (Of course, my friend Thad Wasson filed his statement of candidacy in October 2009 and still stiffed his date with Congressional destiny.)