M. Michael Rounds spoke to David Montgomery about gay marriage Monday. His answer doesn't seem tuned to please anybody.
On the one hand, he reminds us Democrats (and you Libertarians!) that we need to find a solid candidate to beat him and keep our Senate seat in the hands of someone who believes in marriage equality. Saying marriage is only between a man and a woman, Rounds reaffirms the same-sex marriage ban that South Dakota voters narrowly approved under his watch in 2006.
But Rounds then turns and sticks his tongue out at the conservative fire-breathers who think they can primary him with someone more Jim DeMint-y:
But the former governor was more cautious when asked whether the federal constitution should include such a ban.
“You want to be very careful any time you try to define the constitution of the United States,” he said. “I would like to see the language being proposed before I said it should be one thing or another.”
Rounds also said he doesn’t feel supporters of same-sex marriage are “bad” [David Montgomery, "Mike Rounds on Same-Sex Marriage," Political Smokeout, 2013,04.09].
Not "bad"? We're sending Steve Hickey to the Canadian gulag and precipitating the decline of civilization! We must be bad!
As in Sunday's big story about the impending GOP primary (a story still ignored by the Brendan/SHS-obsessed Dakota War College), Rounds comes across as opinionated (not an insult) but pragmatic (also not an insult). He sounds like a guy comfortable in his own political skin, ready to look the shadow-racist Gordon Howie/Bob Ellis crowd in the eye and laugh off their impotent attacks.
Kevin Woster agrees that Rounds has no one on the Right to fear except maybe the empty-headedly Right-when-it's-convenient Kristi Noem:
Rounds also is a Republican who kinda likes government and what it can do for the state, much as Peter Norbeck did.
How much will that hurt Rounds if he has a GOP primary? Well, it won't matter if his opponent is anyone other than U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem. No other GOP candidate likely to jump in the race poses a serious threat to Rounds.
I"m inclined to say that Noem doesn't pose a serious threat, either, except that I underestimated her in a big way when she jumped in late to the 2010 U.S. House primary that I expected Chris Nelson to win.
And she proved me wrong [Kevin Woster, "Rounds Still Hasn't Blinked in Stare-Down with GOP Conservatives," RCJ:Mount Blogmore, 2013.04.09].
Invoking Norbeck as a paradigm frames the discussion of our potential Senate matchups nicely. Rounds runs as a professed conservative who still recognizes that South Dakota survives and thrives thanks to continued government subsidy, such as the big checks Uncle Sam wrote to build Norbeck's big moneymaking tourist attraction southwest of Rapid City. Any challenger wishing to charge Rounds with the RINO flag will have to answer questions about how to feasibly keep South Dakota afloat without government funding... and they won't win that argument with an electorate that recognizes South Dakota's dependency on red-state mooching.
Rounds apparently sees himself as a modern day Peter Norbeck. Remind me. Did Peter Norbeck accomplish anything in his governorship greater than building a new Governor's mansion and further feathering his own nest with a new state airplane?
I honestly can't think of any legitimate accomplishment of Marion Mike Rounds's governorship that wouldn't have happened anyway without him. He was the epitome of a caretaker governor. If past performance is a predictor of future performance, then we have no reason to believe electing him to the senate will change anything in Washington for the better.
Let's see - how about we send a former governor who had no concept of fiscal responsibility to D.C. Well, that sounds like a smashing idea....
Hope he remembers that, unlike the Governor's Hunt list, he has to declare his campaign donations.
If Noem challenges Rounds I think she is in for a real surprise.
Rors: caretaker Rounds left 2 legacies in his forgettable terms. 1) Big spending that included the bloating of state government, FTEs, the university sprawl, planes, etc. that continues today. 2) That hole in the ground that appears to have a similar definition as that of a boat (a hole in the water you pour money into; becomes, that hole in the ground taxpayers pour money into).