In news brought to you first by the South Dakota Blogosphere, Lora Hubbel is running for Governor. The nurse and former legislator will run as a Republican to challenge incumbent Dennis Daugaard. Hubbel will pick up where Gordon Howie left off in 2010, running on the most extreme Tea Party positions and flat-out Michele-Bachmann crazy rhetoric that we could ask for in a primary.
Hubbel's entry into the race pleases me, not because I would ever consider a Hubbel Administration as anything other than cause for the I-29 corridor to secede and join Minnesota. I will find it entertaining to have a statewide candidate who rebels against her own party and likens über-powerful Sanford Health to cancer. I will also find it useful to have a candidate who will help expose the vaccination paranoia, Agenda 21 nuttiness, and dangerous urges to nullification that make funda-Tea-gelicals like Hubbel such a danger to democracy.
But here's a political question for you, dear readers, to kick around in the leaves today. How will Hubbel's participation in the primary (and it will end in the primary, as Team Daugaard will crush her campaign four to one) affect the primary turnout? I envision three scenarios:
- Hubbel's gubernatorial run will synergize with Rep. Stace Nelson's U.S. Senate campaign, mobilizing more hard-core conservatives, Libertarians, and rebels to vote. They won't be enough to push Hubbel past 30% (and I'm being cautious with that number), but those of Hubbel's ideological bent will break to Nelson four to one. Hubbel will tell her voters not to vote for Annette Bosworth. A few might go for Larry Rhoden's Marlboro man image. None will vote for Obamacare-loving Marion Michael Rounds. In a tight primary, Hubbel voters could help Nelson catch Rounds.
- By triggering a gubernatorial primary, Hubbel mobilizes Team Daugaard early, and they synergize with Team Rounds. More mainstream Republicans turn out to turn back the Hubbel-Nelson insurgency. Hubbel's craziness also gets tied to Nelson, further lowering his chances at cruising to Cruz-dom.
- Hubbel's run has no effect on the Senate primary. The Rounds-Nelson battle is already interesting enough to bring out most of the Republicans who might vote. Hubbel is Gordon Howie in a dress, and Howie got fourth place in a five-man race in 2010.
Which Hubbel scenario do you think is most likely?
2.
Keep in mind that the Tea Party-dominated 2010 GOP primary gave us Noem and Daugaard. It also produced the lowest GOP primary turnout since the 60s.
My guess is the hyperbole of the Tea Party rage turned off big chunks of GOP primary voters, which is evident from the record low turnout. If the angry hype of a 2014 GOP primary (amped up by the unlimited treasuries from corporate contributors) turns off voters, it's going to turn off the more rational voter and embolden the loudmouthed Charlie Sheen "Winning!" Tea Party activists who drink deeply from the koolaid of radicalism and self-imposed ignorance.
The thing with Hubbel is her capacity to say the most outrageous, unprovoked and damaging things at any given moment. I'd rather see Howie on the ballot. At least his brand of crazy is somewhat predictable and oddly amusing.
For now, I choose your #3 alternative.
They're all interesting scenarios, but I pick #3. "Hubbel is Gordon Howie in a dress"....Good stuff!!
3. Stace will... [CAH: Tweeeet! Sockpuppet foul! "Bert", "Adolf", and "Drew" all come from the same IP; "Bert" and "Drew" submit same e-mail; "Adolf" submits bogus e-mail. Three-delete penalty, repeat second down.]
Phil... [sockpuppet deleted!]
2. This could lead to a run on peanuts and popcorn. Not to mention the "gooberment". It will put the spotlight on South Dakota's wingnuts and hopefully lead to the Republican party feeding on itself.
The Hitler comparisons in political "discourse" never get old!
The whole... [sockpuppet deleted!]
#1 on the list of losing comebacks: "You're just like Hitler".
#2: "You're a socialist".
Can't wait to see number 3!
The shallowness of comparing Hilter to anything other than Hitler shows that people that make such comments don't know what true socialism, what communism, and what a dictator is.
If you were to compare Hitler to anything, it should be to the Republican Party and the tea party in particular. You will find remarkable similarities. I will leave it to better scholars to provide those similarities.
The atrocities of Hilter, slavery, and the genocide of Native Americans are best left to their place history, they can be compared to nothing else, ever!
DD is under fire from nearly every part of his dissolving party: doctors warning him about not expanding Medicaid, how yet another disaster declaration plays to the teabaggers, and now from the nut wing.
If the senate race is interesting at all (it isn't really) it's because Rounds is such a flawed candidate he had to enter early just to raise money from an elderly, jaded electorate watching rural South Dakota fade into oblivion.
Rounds is a pathetic campaigner: it will be fun to see his short, fat, balding frame slouching next to Stace on some dais somewhere.
Lora is strong enough to stand up to DD.
She will also bring her small band of crazy to every meeting, cracker barrel, and event to shriek louder than the rest of the GOP.
Of course we know that shrieking is just another way of saying you are right and everyone else is a commie, muslim, socialist. marxist, anti-Christian and freedom hating un-'merican.
Godspeed Lora...rally your armies now and strike hard and fast.
Bring it and
Hard to get a scope on Hubbel and how she operates. She almost seems like she travels through some kind of heavenly bodies that are light years away.
Phil Schreck a great person why would you compare him to Hitler.Adolph are you a bigot any chance.
Possibly because of my German heritage? But I'll take this opportunity right now to make it perfectly clear...I'm not now, nor never have been, much of a Hitler fan.
Ms. Jana, it only takes a small band of crazy, you know. If your band of crazy gets too big it explodes.
Phil, I have no doubt about your loyalty and your rejection of fascism. But zen zere iss my last name... perhaps Herr Schreck and Herr Heidelberger are conspiring! /8-=(
It depends on whether Annette, Larry, and Stace start attacking each other or if they all attack Rounds. If they choose the latter, then Lora's numbers will be in the thirties. If they go done the path of the former, then Rounds and Daugaard win quite comfortably (Rounds at 50+ and Daugaard at 70+).
The recent "Katrina" in West River only further emboldens the Annette, Larry, Stace, and Lora right of center forces. Lora will be entertaining, but she is not as credible with the media as the other three, so by default the Senate race will dictate the interest level and Lora's support will be dependent upon the Senate candidates ability to successfully run against the Republican establishment and especially the Rounds/Daugaard team.
Winston, you seem to agree with me that the second-tier candidates should focus their fire on Rounds, not on each other. They are in a pre-primary, trying to qualify for the attention and money of the hard-core D.C. Tea Party groups, but the best way for them to win that D.C. love is (1) build a credible campaign machine and (2) demonstrate their ability to land punches that make Rounds nervous.
Lora will have no effect on anything. She couldn't even get her legislature allies to show at the announcement. She will get the lowest number of votes in a two person GOP primAry in history.
...and no one else is going to enter that GOP primary, right, Troy?