Saturday's debate among all of the GOP Senate candidates crystallized for the challengers their primary mission: concentrate all fire on the frontrunner, Marion Michael Rounds. Spending time picking on Larry Rhoden is a waste of time (Stace!). Trying to step on the slow guys' shoestrings distracts from chasing down the guy in front.
Or, for other sports metaphors, throw your punches at the man with the glass jaw. Hurt Rounds, put him on defense, force him to punch back, and you change the dynamic of the race. Mike Rounds responding is Mike Rounds giving up the fantasy he had of replaying 2002, when he snuck his way to victory as the nice guy against two other meanies calling each other names. He may have thought a crowded field of challengers would fall to squabbling amongst themselves, thus allowing him to recycle his "Aren't you kids wonderful and aren't I wonderful for telling you you're wonderful" fake-sugar kindergarten-teacher routine. But when the challengers all focus their attacks on him (as Nelson and even Ravnsborg tried Saturday), Rounds can't ride the 2002 Kirby-Barnett dynamic. He can't just be Smiling Mike when everyone treats him like Kirby.
But if Rounds is Kirby, doesn't someone end up being Barnett? If Nelson does accept his mission, ignore the other challengers, and pound Rounds (pound is the verb debate panelist Jonathan Ellis uses to describe what Nelson did to Rounds Saturday), does not Nelson risk ending up in second place with Rounds while an electorate with some weirdly selective aversion to electoral violence picks some milder nice guy who doesn't say much?
Our jarhead hero pauses, rifle in hand. He can storm the bunker. He can take out the big gun. But he may not survive to march on to Paris. What's a Marine to do?
Stace Nelson cannot win if he doesn't attack Mike Rounds. He may not win if he does attack Rounds. I suspect Nelson constitutionally (as in personal constitution) cannot decline what may be a suicide mission. He may be the only candidate with big enough rifle and grenades to carry out this mission. He might surprise us and survive... but if he doesn't, who will pick up his fallen banner and march on Rounds-2002-like to November?
The difference is that both Kirby and Barnett were quite popular within the GOP, and had name recognition so when they went head to head they destroyed themselves. Rounds is the only one to have name recognition in this group, he is going to have to really go crazy for it to be like Kirby. I know his team isn't what I'd call the greatest in the world, but its still a pretty solid campaign team.
Yeah, pointing out a candidate's actual record is completely different from a personal attack. This race is completely different from the Kirby-Barnett-Rounds race. They can't even be compared.
"Hickey used Heidelberger’s evidence and filed a writ of prohibition in Hughes County last week. The writ would have required Gant to appear before Circuit Court Judge Mark Barnett on April 18, after election ballots were printed April 16."
http://www.capjournal.com/news/more-questions-raised-about-bosworth-s-petition-signatures/article_1d1ebd5e-c3fa-11e3-812b-001a4bcf887a.html
Nothing we can do about that today. One thing at a time.
Joe you wrote, "The difference is that both Kirby and Barnett were quite popular within the GOP"
The other difference was that they were/are both good guys compared to the "slick willy" who took their place and made everyone believe he was/is a good guy.
But the worst part of the scenario that you pose, Cory is that as I watched the second half Saturday and then watched the rest yesterday, I got an uncomfortable feeling as I watched those two go at it (a little bit, I was wishing that Stace would take the gloves off, that's why I wouldn't make a good campaign manager) and felt that the other two males in the debate were a little soft on the issues, I had the mysterious and uncomfortable feeling that the Boz was probably appealing to more people than you and I and most on this blog would hope or would have thought.
Does it bother anyone here that none of the actual news providers in South Dakota have attempted to verify whether Bosworth was in the Phillipines in January as she claims? If they have attempted to verify the information,they are sure keeping it quiet.
I agree with Mike from Iowa (do you know Jason Roundsberg? He's from Iowa too)
What's wrong with Mercer? Dunsmoor? Olsen? Ellis? Montgomery? Heck, this would be a story that could breath some life into the RCJ.
They could have even asked the question of her at the debate last weekend.
DD-no I don't.
Mike. Not only does it bother me that none of SD's journalists have bothered to run a fact-based story on whether Dr. Bosworth committed perjury in the petition circulator's affidavit, but it also bothers me that the AG of South Dakota failed to take up the investigation when asked to do so and presented with evidence establishing probable cause of a felony. A lot of people in SD are thrown in jail for a lot less than that. So why are Mr. Jackley and the entire SD press corps doing their best Sgt. Schultz routine?
Rorschach, Can you say Mike Rounds?