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As Paula Hawks tries to gain purchase on the porcelain as her campaign continues to circle the drain, a number of agriculture groups came together to point out how Congresswoman Kristi Noem has been an effective representative for the State on the Ways and Means committee.

Their letter appeared on the Argus Leader website yesterday:

As farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses we strongly disagree with recent criticisms of Rep. Kristi Noem’s transition to the influential House Ways and Means Committee. This was a strategic move –made with the understanding that having a voice during tax, trade and health care debates would be essential to ensuring fair deals for agriculture and all South Dakotans. For this reason, we each offered our encouragement and support to Noem when the opportunity to join Ways and Means arose in early 2015.

and…

There is no doubt that if you’re a farmer or rancher, you care about the Farm Bill, but the conversation must not stop there. We need to fix what’s wrong with our tax code, level the playing field so products can be sold more easily overseas, eliminate harmful regulations, and make it easier to pass our operations to our children. The agriculture industry’s interests are not isolated to a sole committee in Congress, and our representation shouldn’t be either. In her role as the first South Dakotan in history to serve on the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kristi Noem is giving agriculture a powerful and effective voice in Congress.

Todd Wilkinson, president, S.D. Cattlemen’s Association, DeSmet
Brenda Forman, executive director, S.D. Association of Cooperatives, Pierre
Keith Alverson, president, S.D. Corn Growers Association, Chester
Scott VanderWal, president, S.D. Farm Bureau Federation, Volga
Jerry Schmitz, president, S.D. Soybean Association, Vermillion

Read it all here.

“Rep. Kristi Noem is giving agriculture a powerful and effective voice in Congress.” That small letter to the editor speaks volumes.

From KORN Radio, apparently Rick Weiland has pulled down his offensive flag burning video that was produced in support of the Amendment V proposal that would hide party labels from the ballot:

An on-line video favoring passage of Amendment V has been removed from YouTube. The video, titled “Party Wars” was promoted by TakeItBack.org, a group supporting Amendment V. It used blue, red, and purple toy soldiers to depict what appears to be an Independent trying to vote and included the burning of a small American Flag.

Rick Knobe, co-chair of the Yes on V committee says his group had nothing to do with the video. He says the group that produced it did so without asking the committee or seeking permission to publish it.

Read it all here.

In the raging battle over where the Yes on V group is getting it’s funding, tonight the “Open Primaries” group claims it’s all a big misunderstanding:

and…

Apparently, someone doesn’t want their identity known, or can’t pick up the phone.

An anonymous “Survey Monkey” poll was sent out tonight to legislators and candidates to ask where the “perspective (sic) Republican Legislators” stand on issues and where they are in leadership elections.

Once you get into the content, there’s an immediate obsession with registration history and report cards, asking them if they’ve read the party platform, and demanding information on their compliance. (That’s if you get past all the mistakes in the survey, and thinly veiled attacks on current Republican leadership.)

The survey ends with an odd and out of place call for disunity, asking legislators if they should establish a caucus within the caucus, if their favored conservatives are not elected to lead the Republican Caucus. (a.k.a., the take-our-toys-and-go-home strategy.)

It’s almost as if the author of the survey is attempting to have it serve as a proclamation that someone is looking to stir stuff up, and if you aren’t meeting someone’s narrow definition of scorecard Republicanism, then you’re not worthy.

Anyone who responds to it likely risks approaching the level of foolishness of the people who sent it. Because they’ll have all your answers, and you’ll have none of theirs.

Those who aren’t running, what do you think about the survey?  And what do you think about someone with a hankering to starting up all the intra-caucus nonsense again? Do we really need to replace a deliberative process with name calling?

If there’s any lesson that’s been proven time and time again when nonsense such as anonymous attacks against leadership sprouted up before, it’s that it’s a silly distraction. Those in GOP Leadership are in the leadership position because they were elected by their peers.

And I suspect they’ll have less tolerance for it than they did before.

If you haven’t heard about the Sioux Falls Doc who is sitting in the Jail in Sioux Falls on a million dollar bond…..From the Argus Leader:

A Sioux Falls doctor accused of human trafficking is being held on $1 million cash-only bond.

Jonathan David Cohen, 36, appeared in court Thursday afternoon on charges of human trafficking, procuring or promoting prostitution, sexual exploitation of a minor and solicitation of a minor.

The victim in the case was a runaway from Georgia who was reported missing in August, Lt. Michael Colwill said. She had visited and stayed with Cohen for four days in September and again this week after meeting him on an online dating website. The two were engaged in a sexual relationship, Colwill said.

and..

Prosecutors said Thursday that Cohen, who is a doctor with the Sanford Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, had sex with the girl on his desk at work. They said Cohen admitted to buying a plane ticket for the girl using the victim’s birth date, meaning he knew the girl’s age.

Read it here.

An observant reader pointed out that ‘the good doctor’ has been busy writing checks to Hillary Clinton..(From OpenSecrets.org)…:

….and has been busy on his Facebook page railing against Donald Trump, most recently posting about how he’s “holding judgement against his supporters.”

Somehow, I think he picked a bad time to talk about holding judgement against anyone.

After the Amendment V press release this morning pointing out that potentially illegal donations have been made to promote the ballot measure which would hide party labels on the ballot, Yes on V spokesman Rick Knobe is out calling the call to return the illegal donations “A dirty trick”

Mortenson called on Yes on V to return money that it received from the two groups, which aren’t required to disclose their donors.

“The supporters of Amendment V must immediately return the illegal contributions obtained from dark money corporations that have no regard for South Dakota law,” he said in a statement.

and..

Rick Knobe, the chairman of Vote Yes on V responded with a statement accusing the state’s political establishment of playing “dirty tricks” in making the allegation. The South Dakota Republican Party opposes Amendment V.

and..

“Campaign finance laws exist to protect South Dakota elections from just this type of hidden, out-of-state influence, Mortenson said. “Yes on V should give back every cent it received from TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries and apologize to the people of South Dakota for its disregard of our campaign finance laws.”

Read it all here.

So, the chairman of the No on V Committee calls the allegation a dirty trick, and rails on against the Republican party…   But one thing I notice is that he didn’t deny that it happened. He didn’t say, No, we didn’t take illegal money.  He just called making the allegation “dirty tricks” without addressing their substance.

This bad news for Knobe couldn’t come at a worse time.

Why? Because Nielsen ratings recently came in for Spring 2016. And it isn’t looking good for KSOO Radio, who came in last place among listeners in the Sioux Falls Metro area:

(There was one with fewer listeners, but most people don’t consider Yankton Based WNAX as a member of the Sioux Falls Metro area.)

Knobe’s station was 2000 listeners off of first place for persons 12 and older from 6am to 12 Midnight, with an average rating of .1, a weekly cumulative rating of 4.7 and an average share of 1.3%

I can’t imagine that Knobe’s attachment to a ballot measure designed to hide party affiliation, and disenfranchise independent candidates from the fall general election has helped attract badly needed listeners to what was once a flagship station in the Sioux Falls media market.

Getting beat up in the press, while his station is getting beat up in the ratings. It’s just not Rick Knobe’s day.

If you recall the article that Democrat Jay Davis wrote a short time back about how Amendment V style primaries haven’t worked out how the promoters thought they would, one only has to look to recent primaries to see how it would most likely shake out in South Dakota.

Case in point, the 1994 South Dakota Gubernatorial election.

This was the election by which Governor Bill Janklow returned to the office after a hiatus, and won a primary over Governor Walter Dale Miller who was running after serving out the term of Governor George Mickelson.   At the same time on the Democrat side, Jim Beddow ran against Red Allen of Yankton, and PUC Commissioner Jim Burg.

Beddow faced Janklow in the fall, losing at about 41% to Janklow’s 55%, with Libertarian Nathan Barton picking up 4%.

If we had laws in place similar to Amendment V back then?

Republican	Bill Janklow	57,221
Republican	Walter D. Miller	48,754
Democratic	Jim Beddow	29,082
Democratic	Carrol V. Allen	12,184
Democratic	Jim Burg	11,181

The primary would have given South Dakota the choice of these gentlemen, plus possibly Libertarian Barton who ran in the fall General election.

Who would have advanced to the fall election after an Amendment V primary?  Given that it’s the two top vote recipients…..

Republican	Bill Janklow	57,221
Republican	Walter D. Miller	48,754

The two Republicans would have gotten to fight it out all over again, because Jim Beddow couldn’t get more people to vote for him than the person who finished second in the GOP contest.  And forget the libertarian, or any independent in the fall – they would have not gotten the opportunity.

One of the arguments that Amendment V proponents use is that the Amendment V Primary will cause “more moderate candidates” to be elected to office.  I don’t know that I’d consider Walt or Bill anything less than conservative in their approach.

And despite the wool that Amendment V supporters are trying to pull over our eyes – they’re not going to bring back “the good old days” for Democrat. Unless they change their ways, it’s just not going to happen.

In South Dakota, there’s a reason all of our statewide elected officials are Republicans. They’ve reflected the values of the people who have elected them, and they’ve run effective campaigns. In many cases – especially in recent years – Democrats have not offered statewide candidates who reflect the values of the electorate, and organizationally, the party has fallen apart.

As fewer and fewer South Dakotans want to identify with Democrat policies from Washington and the Democrat’s liberal elite, the opposing party has suffered greatly.

Again, these societal changes in our state are not through any machinations of South Dakota’s majority party, but because traditional Democrats who thought their party represented the little guy now see Democrats trying to things such as regulate the water in their culvert at a federal level, mandate that their local schools allow boys in girls locker rooms, and force them to buy insurance they don’t want.

That’s not anything that happened in the country they grew up in, and they view it as part of an ever more intrusive government.

Some might argue the shift started when Democrats began identifying themselves as the party of abortion, and Republicans became the party of life. And as the policies that parties identified with became more polarized, so did people.

And in church going South Dakota, that resulted in significant losses that all the primary election modification and other attempted electoral tricks in the world can’t reverse.

Amendment V Campaign Called On To Return Illegal Contributions
Dark Money Raised Illegally Mirrors Anti-Transparency of Amendment V

Fort Pierre, SD –– No on V Campaign Chair Will Mortenson has called for the Yes on V campaign to return all illegal contributions and come clean to South Dakota voters on their scheme to evade South Dakota campaign finance law. TakeItBack.Org and Open Primaries, two dark money organizations funding Yes on Amendment V, violated South Dakota law by explicitly raising funds to influence a ballot question, Constitutional Amendment V.

State law calls for organizations, including corporations like TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries, to swear under oath that no part of the contribution given to a ballot question committee was raised or collected “for the purpose of influencing the ballot question.”

TakeItBack.org issued a correspondence on October 4th (below) soliciting donations to “help us pass Amendment V,” while Open Primaries collected donations to influence Amendment V through a website called CrowdPAC (https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/74922/a-voice-for-every-voter-send-a- message-to-washington).

“The supporters of Amendment V must immediately return the illegal contributions obtained from dark money corporations that have no regard for South Dakota law. Amendment V would take party identification off the ballot so it’s no surprise that it’s being pushed by illegal, dark money from out-of- state,” said Mortenson.

“Campaign finance laws exist to protect South Dakota elections from just this type of hidden, out-of-state influence. Yes on V should give back every cent it received from TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries and apologize to the people of South Dakota for its disregard of our campaign finance laws,” Mortenson added.

As of the latest campaign finance report, Yes on Amendment V garnered 76% of its contributions from out-of-state and 92% of contributions from dark money groups like TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries who do not disclose their donors. Open Primaries alone provided $246,784.00, representing 71.92% of contributions to Yes on Amendment V.

TakeItBack.org is a 501(c)(4) corporation that does not disclose its donors. TakeItBack.org is run by long-time Democratic Party Bosses Rick Weiland and Drey Samuelson. Weiland also serves as Chairman of the Yes on Amendment V ballot committee. Open Primaries is a New York City-based 501(c)(4) corporation that does not disclose its donors. Open Primaries is an activist organization, pushing plans similar to Amendment V in several states.

##

From the Mitchell Daily Republic, one long time former Democrat legislator has already written off Jay Williams. Possibly because Williams has campaigned so poorly, he can’t think of his name:

During a visit from Thune to former state legislator Mel Olson’s Advanced Placement government course at Mitchell High School on Monday, Olson predicted Thune would earn 76 percent of the vote in a race against Democratic challenger Jay Williams for a spot in the U.S. Senate.

“I mean, I’m a Democrat, and I can’t remember the guy’s name that you’re running against,” Olson joked.

And..

“I believe the voters of South Dakota want to have a real choice in this election, and my campaign is giving them that choice,” Williams said.

If that choice is to elect Thune by a 76-24 percent margin, as Olson suggests, Thune would best Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s sweeping victory over Democratic challenger Susan Wismer in the 2014 gubernatorial race in which Daugaard won the support of 70.47 of South Dakota voters.

Read it all here.