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Nelson Challenges Weak Rhoden Signature Count; Pressler in Big!

The undercard: Stace Nelson is challenging Larry Rhoden's paltry signature count. Pat Powers seethes that Nelson is beating up on a "Fellow Republican," but come on! Nelson and Rhoden aren't playing tiddlywinks. Rhoden invited a challenge with his anemic petition effort, submitting 2,144 signatures, less than 10% over the 1,955 GOP nominating petition requirement. Larry, what campaign consultant told you less than 10% was all the cushion you needed... and why have you not fired that consultant?

The main event: Larry Pressler walks into the Secretary of State's office, looks at Rhoden's pile of signatures, and says, "That's not a petition; this is a petition." The SOS office wouldn't tell me the number yesterday (what am I, chopped liver?), but they tell the Pierre Capital Journal that Pressler handed Deputy Secretary of State Patricia Miller 4,136 signatures. Independents need 3,171 signatures to make the ballot. Pressler thus has a 30%-plus cushion. Big cushion? For Pressler, that's darn-near a whoopee! cushion.

I might say whoopee! too, if Pressler weren't buying his signatures. Pressler hired Emmett Reistroffer to put together another corps of paid signature seekers. Reistroffer is pretty good at such work... except when he's not, and he blows 35% of a customer's signatures with one simple legal mistake.

Hmm... maybe both Larrys will face a petition challenge. But with Pressler saying he's going to bring in another 2,000 or so by the Indy deadline of April 29, it seems pretty likely we'll have one Larry on the Senate ballot this fall.

14 Comments

  1. TG 2014.03.08

    Cory - did you (and Nelson) miss the deadline requirements (3-25-14) and that THIS is actually not THE race? Do you remember that Rhoden lives in 'the distant land' perhaps still using Pony Express? You get your significant groupings of signatures together and I suppose they're like gold (think of a large paycheck) and as you gave Pressler the potential credit for turning into SOS for "safe keeping", might it not be the same for the other Larry?

    Rest assured, there will be two Larry's on the ballot in June. But, somehow, I think you know that already even though you would like a weaker challenger for your candidate. Which by the way and just so you know, I am very fond of Weiland. I think he's a very nice guy. I know alot of his family and have met him a few times as well. Just so you don't think I'm being too biased.

    No big deal. This only helps one (or several) R candidates and only hurts one (and the hurt one isn't named Larry). :-)

  2. Disgusted Dakotan 2014.03.08

    Old reliable professional spinner "TG" to the rescue! Poor Rhoden is a victim! Another play out of the opposite side's playbook. Rhoden is not responsible for not turning in enough valid signatures, he is a victim that someone dare call him on his weak showing!

    How is it that the Sec. Of State office went through Rhoden's 2,100 signatures in one day to certify him, but it will take them a week to go through 300 to show he wasn't compliant to get certified to begin with? Seems Gant is back to playing favors with the establishment Republicans again.

    No matter how team lifelong Democrat, turned Republican to get elected, Rhiden, spin this? It shows they have very weak support.

    Nelson beat him turning in signatures by two weeks, with 760+ over the required #.

    Better get out there and start lying to people and telling them Rhoden is a "lifelong conservative Reagan Republican" TG!

  3. larry kurtz 2014.03.08

    Stace is the only one of the earth hater candidates with any integrity whatsoever. Please join me and send him some money.

  4. Donald Pay 2014.03.08

    Good grief. This all sounds like little boys playing sandlot baseball, or comparing genitals. "Mine is bigger than yours."

    The idea behind a cushion is that some folks, who were not residents of the state or district, would sign by mistake. I've carried a lot of petitions, and honest mistakes happen. Generally, it's far less than 10 percent. So if you aim for 10 percent over, there should be no problem.

    Except now folks spend money hiring "professionals" to go collect signatures and hire the same "professionals" to go over other peoples' petitions line by line to try to make an undotted "i" or a uncrossed "t" to be a criminal offense. Or they look to see whether someone has, God help us all, moved and hasn't, oh my goodness!!!, gotten around to re-registering at their new address. These "professionals" are nothing but scam artists, who try to make it sound like something criminal has been done because, oh, my!!!, there was some insignificant issue that takes only a professional to figure out.

    When "professionals" carry petitions you can count on far more mistakes, or outright fraud, which means the whole idea of grassroots citizenship becomes suspect, and our society loses.

    Want to solve the problem? Get rid of the "professionals."

  5. TG 2014.03.08

    No professionals were used by Rhoden.

    And DD, not coming to the rescue as you feel you do for Nelson by spewing lies, I just call it like it is. I stick to facts. Fact? Turning in signatures wasn't THE race. Fact? The deadline is 3-25. Facts are really simple. It's when you start the lying that things get misconstrued.

  6. Disgusted Dakotan 2014.03.08

    DD - you mean like Rhoden claiming he strongly supports term limits? Or he is a lifelong conservative Reagan Republican who was a 21 year registered Democrat but never voted for Democrats? Or that he strongly opposes tax and fee increases?! :-D

    Your whole campaign is a lie. Your poor showing on signatures show how weak Rhoden's support is.

    The only reason Rhoden is in the race is to be a decoy for his buddy Mike Rounds.

    Mark my words, within 2 years of Rhoden losing in the primary, he will get some type of appointment.

  7. Donald Pay 2014.03.08

    If the purpose of a petition is to show you have the legally required support to get on the ballot, then collect that number of signature plus 10 percent through committed volunteers. If your purpose is something else (pretending signatures amount to popularity), collect as many over the legal number plus 10 percent as you want, but don't ever pretend it's about legal requirements.

  8. Rorschach 2014.03.08

    I can't fault Rep. Nelson for reviewing Sen. Rhoden's petitions to verify minimum compliance with the law. If Sen. Rhoden doesn't have enough valid signatures then he doesn't belong on the ballot. If that's the case, then it's fortunate for Sen. Rhoden that he has his petitions turned in early so he has time to go out and get some more signatures. My guess is that Sen. Rhoden will have several hundred more signatures before the deadline. He will be on the ballot.

  9. Donald Pay 2014.03.08

    Verifying compliance with the law is the job of a government official tasked with that responsibility, not some self-interested candidate.

  10. TG 2014.03.08

    DD - we'll have to disagree again and then I'll be done and you can spew what you like.

    Here's the difference between you and me. I publish positive and truthful statements about my candidate when I see lies about him or anyone for that matter. This is how I defend. You on the other hand, see the only way to support your candidate is not by making positive statements about him or what he's done but rather by tearing down someone else with lies. Call it coming to the rescue but it's really a matter of just clarifying the lies you write. I would do the same thing for a child or an old lady if they were being treated unfairly.

    In fact, on DWC, I gave kudos to Nelson for turning them in first (even though I don't think anyone thought it was a race). And I was the first to defend Nelson when Pat got on him about wearing jeans to the Lincoln Co. LDD when that was the theme of the event. I can't help it, I call a spade a spade and try to get facts and truth out there even in Nelson's defense even though he's not my candidate of choice. I thought it was a cheap shot at him and I just spoke the truth. I guess they call it integrity.

  11. Disgusted Dakotan 2014.03.09

    "TG" You spin lies around dishonesty, that does not make you a saint. Your lies around Rhoden have changed as the facts came out. Your initial lies were that he was a Democrat but changed parties 30+ years ago when he married into a strong Republican family, then it changed after his voter registration forms were out to Rhoden was a registered Democrat for 21 years, but only voted for Republicans, then it was well he might have voted for a friend that was running for county commissioner in all those Democratic elections!

    Even now you claim that Rhoden might have prepositioned hundreds of petition signatures with the SOS that they are sitting on! That is a spin (lie) to deflect what a weak submission Rhoden had.

    Don't even get me started on all your lies about Rhoden "strongly supporting term limits" or the lies about his record of carrying the bucket for Mike Rounds in increasing state spending, the size of SD govt, increasing taxes & FEES, and a slew of other lies about his moderate record.

    All of that is not integrity, that is just more of the Rhoden chameleon conservative dishonesty.

  12. TG 2014.03.09

    You poor thing. I really do feel sorry for you if all you have to do is fret about how Rhoden voted years ago. I, like most others who have commented in response to this claim, care about what he's done in recent years. Things like leadership positions voted by his R peers for 10-11 of his 14 years, President of the national org. Ag and Rural leaders (you see he's a leader recognized by his peers wherever he goes), the TOP scoring Senator on the Freedom Index, top 5% scorer on voting record along party platform no matter how it's spun, repealing the trucker's tax, repealing property taxes, defeating the penny sales tax when proponents spent millions and the list goes on.

    Don't blame Rhoden when you don't have anything positive to say about your candidate and his accomplishments or lack of.

    While Rhoden is vying for the #1 position in this race, you seem to be content vying for the #2 position. Good luck on that.

  13. Disgusted Dakotan 2014.03.09

    So which is it TG? Rhoden is an establishment moderate Republican? A Democrat? Or a conservative TEA Partier?

    Getting elected into leadership with "former" Democrats Val Raush, Dave Knudson, Joni Cutler, Scott Munsterman, David Lust (?) in a part time legislature? Wow! Rhoden is in the same league as Ted Klodt who was Larry's friend!

    Not impressed with any of Rhoden's lies and fence hopping on the issues.

    Rhoden is vying for an appointment for being a decoy candidate for Rounds.

  14. grudznick 2014.03.09

    Mr. Disgusted,
    Perhaps your answer is that Mr. Rhoden is not an insaner ineffective legislature with no common sense or any ability to work with others.

    Mr Nelson is an insaner ineffective legislature with no common sense and no abilility to work with others. This year he is making ineffective seem mild. I think he might have crossed into the world of incompetence. Due to him getting insaner.

Comments are closed.