My wife and I stepped on the flight to Sioux Falls a minute ago, and who do we run into,  but 1992 GOP US Senate Candidate Charlene Haar, who challenged US Senator Tom Daschle that election. 

When I was in Rapid City as Pennington County GOP Director, my wife worked on Char’s campaign as the Haar campaign west river person.

Char has become an expatriate in recent years, living in London where her daughter Elizabeth and her family lives. 

It was great catching up for a bit. Char’s back in the states for Easter with her family, and she is just as kind and gracious as she always was, and she looks great.

Catching the news as I wander through the Chicago airport connecting to my Sioux Falls flight on United Airlines (yes, that United)…

I knew I stopped out to see Senator Rounds and Thune for a reason. They’re currently among the most popular Senators in the United States:

Seriously, according to the latest
rankings from the website “Morning Consult,” Senator Thune comes in as the #7th Most popular US Senator in America, at 66% approval and Senator Mike Rounds at #16 comes in at 61% approval.

(Governor Daugaard beats them both at #5 Governor in the US with 68% approval as of Morning Consult’s latest rankings. 

No word on an April US House ranking yet.)

Read all about it here.

As much as Democrats might complain, a strong majority of South Dakotans like our Republican leaders.

Bypassing the media and sending out a press release directly to her mailing list, yesterday Secretary of State Shantel Krebs was boasting that she had raised nearly 141 thousand in her bid to be our state’s next Congressperson against former PUC Commissioner Dusty Johnson:

Since announcing her candidacy for U.S. House on March 13th, Shantel Krebs’ first report to the Federal Elections Commission shows an impressive $140,147 in contributions received in the first 18 days of her campaign, with $133,181.15 cash on hand.

 And…

Shantel’s first quarter report shows broad support from across South Dakota, with nearly 40% of all donations from individual donors being $200 or less.

(From the release)

It is unknown if Krebs’ self-reporting includes what was spent on her roll-out, or if those bills are yet to come in.

The FEC forms won’t be filed for several days at best, which may provide a truer reflection of what was raised & what’s on hand for each candidate running in the race.

I’m at the game tonight, so no blogging going on in these parts this evening!

Unfortunately, my first planned stop in Washington was scuttled by the weather gods, who delayed my flight in 3 hours, so unfortunately I missed Congresswoman Noem who was flying out that afternoon.

However, I did stop in this morning and spent some time talking with her staff, and I’m going to try to catch Kristi in state sometime in the near future to talk about what’s coming up legislatively for our State’s lone representative in Congress.

She works pretty hard for South Dakota, and works hard to spend as much time in state as possible. Including being stuck in an airport for 11 hours as she was coming home for their Easter break.

So stay tuned! In the meantime, it is a beautiful day in Washinton. And I’m going to enjoy it!

And a good Sunday morning to you from inside the beltway of Washington, DC!  

After having several pre-planned activities yesterday including a White House tour bright and early in the morning….

… followed by the Cherry Blossom parade and the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival, today is far less planned. Unless I can find another Irish Pub with a good reputation for Fish & Chips:

I’m up to three so far this trip: The Dubliner, just off of Union Square; Eammon’s A Dublin Chipper in Alexandria; and Rí Rá Irish Pub in Georgetown.  All of which are well worth your time stopping. 

Arlington National Cemetery is on my schedule either today or tomorrow, and this morning, I’m on my way to the Newseum, which is having a display on Rock, Power & Politics, and we’ll just have to see where it goes from there. 

Still lots to come!