From my twitter feed:
Ann Tornberg is the new SD Democrat party chair with Joe Lowe as vice chair YES!!
— Kathy Tyler (@KathyTyler11) December 13, 2014
Assuming Kathy Tyler isn’t saying something foolish as she’s prone to, it sounds as if former Union boss Ann Tornberg is the new chair of the South Dakota Democrat Party, beating out Minnehaha County Chair Jeff Barth for the position.
Just as an aside… This sets up an interesting scenario, as this last session, she served as House Secretary for the Democrats, as hired through the Legislative Research Council. If she carries forward to this session, does this mean that the new Chair of the Democrat Party is going to be a legislative employee?
But I digress. We’re talking about the doom and gloom they face for 2016 as a result of today.
With her campaign experience limited to losing three legislative races in a row, it’s questionable what strategy Tornberg will be able to formulate. Because the prior experience hasn’t proven to be a winner.
And as far as her campaign finances go…
(Click to enlarge)
With only $1,950 of mid to large level donors in her own race, anyone with a knowledge of raising money knows it remains to be seen how she will be able to raise funds to support party activities. Such as an office, staff, etcetera.
Facing a newly elected chair with a track record of loss and only middling success at fundraising, Democrats are providing continued inexperience at the wheel. And that may cause some real dangers for them.
In 2010, Democrats took a pass on challenging John Thune. With a significant war chests going into 2016 for both Thune and Congresswoman Kristi Noem, there may very well be a repeat of that debacle for Democrats. Coming off of this years’ record setting poor performance in recruiting and electing statewide candidates, with a almost non-existent bench, and weak state party leadership, South Dakotans may have a very real possibility that Democrats field no candidates at the statewide level for the 2016 election.
And with two more years of the most unpopular president in modern history to go, today’s vote shows that the primary risk to continued Republican dominance in South Dakota at this point is complacency.
Rumor is Tornberg will be new Democrat Senate Caucus secretary during session, with Tyler taking on the same role in the House. Anyone able to confirm?
Why does a secret meeting of 4 or 5 people need a secretary and how much will we tax payers be paying her?
You have your facts wrong. While the Republicans profess to support the Constitution and it’s open government provisions, it is the Republicans who illegally caucus secretly.. Not the Democrats.
OK then please let me rephrase my question to not offend you. Why does this non-secret meeting of 4 or 5 people that nobody else ever attends need a secretary paid for by the taxpayers of this fine state? I say, have them scribble out some minutes on a scorepad and make the LRC post them on the state blog.
I believe that the Republicans also have an LRC-paid secretary in both the office of the Senate and House Majority Leaders.
Mr. Begalka, is this secretary in the caucuses? That is the claim here. This young lady is a paid taxpayer secretary for the caucus of 4 Democratic senators. Cannot somebody just snappy chat that meeting and post it on the webs if it is open to all?
There is never anyone present in any Republican caucus meetings other than Legislators and interns. The secretary may be present at Democratic caucus meetings, I don’t know, I’ve never attended one. But I think the point is that both parties in both chambers are given a paid secretary who works throughout the session doing secretarial duties each working day. The are called “caucus” secretaries because they are there to serve the whole caucus (the people in it), not because they are attending the actual caucus meetings and taking minutes there of that meeting.
Good for the Dems! Hopefully they can course correct since those positions are basically admin positions and can offer our party more competition which will make our party, candidates and office holders better instead of a few 3rd string officeholders we are stuck with now due to apathy and complacency.
The Democrats have been very successful in infiltrating some of the strongest positions in our legislature.
Democrats turned “Republican” to get elected:
Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson
Speaker of the House Valentine Rausch
Senator Joni Cutler
Senate Whip (former House Majority Leader) Larry Rhoden
Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dan Lederman
Representative (Committee Chair) Scott Munstermann
Representative Kyle Schoenfish
Representative Tad Perry
Representative Charlie Hoffman
Etc., etc., etc.
Unfortunately so many of our elected officials are more of opportunists looking to see how they can profit at taxpayer expense rather than be true conservatives. Between a SDDP that can finally start becoming competitive and true conservatives not opportunists, nor 3rd string office holders within our own party we can finally make the SDGOP a real party for conservatives.
You forgot:
Gordon Howie Rino
Laura Hubble Rino
Ben Arndt Dem
Stace Nelson (Supported Gordon) Rino
Ted – what a list you post. Their leaving the Republican Party in order to shame us via their pique, and leave us desolate by their exit, has affected us all deeply.
Hoffman was a Democrat?
You have your facts wrong buddy. Registered in High School as soon as I could. Republican ever since.
(I must have really pissed off some of the nut bags for them to keep brining this lie up!).
Stace has a lot of time on his hands since last June.
Goodbye Mr. Barth.
Charlie Hoffman is a life long Republican, from a family that has more years of GOP service than whoever it is that made that post about him. Spread some Christmas cheer, instead of that other stuff.
Thanks Lee. I responded above before reading this!!!
Yep… By the reckoning of some idiots above, even Ron Reagan wouldn’t be Republican enough to merit validity to serve in our legislature.
Agreed. I like Dave Knudson.
Why would the legislature pay the leader of any political party to sit around the Capitol during session. Sounds like a waste of our money at best and a real distraction at worst.
Congratulations to the Democrat Party! They just elected a county chair that failed to get ONE candidate to run for office in Union County! Tornberg let 7 Republicans walk into office without a Democrat opponent. This looks real good for recruiting in 2016.
maybe that’s their plan for statewide offices in ’16 !
You ran a post prior to the election calling Tornburg out for not really being a pro-life candidate, despite her advertising. Now that she has been elected chair, a supporter makes the same point over on Constant Commoner blog, that the “Choice” issue is not that important to her and she is supported by pro-choice activists. I don’t care about where she stands on the issue as much as what appears to be the intent to deceive voters on both sides.
Ann Tornberg ran as a fake conservative Democrat when she is really a Liberal that supported Obama by throwing fundraisers in Union County for his reelection. The voters of Union County saw through all the BS and rejected her the third time at the ballot box.
It’s sad that she was able to fool the Democrat party into believing that she can do the job. She failed at recruiting candidates for Union County Commission and State House but the Democrat party thinks she can recruit candidates for statewide office and the legislature?