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Having attended a great many political dinners over the past 29 years I’ve been involved in South Dakota politics, I think I can safely say when a political dinner is boring. And when it comes down to it, I’d put the 2017 SDDP McGovern Day Dinner down as excruciatingly dull.

I was going to extract more fun clips out of it, but sorry. I’m crying uncle at listening to any more of this. It is so dull, it is beyond me why they closed the dinner to the media.  The meal invocation might have been something they didn’t want the press to see, but otherwise it was as boring as dinners of any other political persuasion.

I mean, seriously. It was “sign up for the silent auction in the back” and introduction of officials, here’s videos from important party people, and like every GOP County Dinner I think I’ve ever been to, and there have been a few like this that went on far too long. …. And with this meal, the wine was bitter with the tears of Democrats over their losses and the fact that Donald Trump is our President. Not to mention that their printed program had less advertising than most county GOP County dinners was pretty telling that this is a party in decline.

If you want to listen to the super secret, closed to the media Democrat dinner in it’s near entirety (I clipped some at the beginning while they were eating with no speaker, and off the end with Sutton and Heinert) I’ve got it here for your listening pleasure as provided to me by an attendee: 

Sorry for the quality, I had to compress it down significantly to get it uploaded. It’s a huge audio file regardless, despite the meal being so boring.

From KELOAM on April 11th:

Sideras is planning to leave the end of June. Mayor Mike Huether is hoping to hire from within, but it’s a tough act to follow.

“So mayor, what are the plans now? How do you replace someone with 33 years of spit and vigor and fire and leadership?”  (Huether, once again talking in the 3rd person -pp)

Read that here.

and from KELO TV Last night, Mayor Huether speaks on on the fire chief’s accelerated departure date:

“I can tell you that he’s no longer an employee with the city of Sioux Falls effective today,” Huether said. “We [are] gonna move on, take care of our city in the best way that we can, just like we’ve always done.”

Read it here.

I’m sure we’re going to be hearing about this.

*UPDATE*

KELO AM’s Todd Epp has a few comments about it as well:

As much as I admire Mayor Huether as a leader and all that he’s done for the city, I think this was an unfortunate choice of words. It sounds like he’s trying to sweep this mess aside. That’s not going to happen. We in the media won’t let that happen, or at least I hope not. Something major happened to one of the most important city leaders who was appointed to his position by the Mayor. Then fired by the Mayor.

and…

Given that Mayor Mike may have designs on higher statewide office, this also becomes a test for him on how to handle adverse publicity on an important public matter in a transparent manner.

Read that here.

From Facebook:

Please keep Sean in your prayers for a speedy recovery.

Thune: Our Nation Depends on Farmers and Ranchers

“Our nation, and the world, depend on our farmers and ranchers. We need to make sure that they can sustain their operations and continue to efficiently feed America and the world.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a longtime member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, today discussed the challenges currently facing America’s agriculture economy. There are several ways Congress and the president can help spur growth in that sector, like by negotiating bilateral trade agreements, repealing harmful and burdensome regulations, and reforming the tax code.

Another way Congress can work to improve the agriculture economy is by creating new and revising existing federal farm programs that will be authorized under the next farm bill.

Earlier this year, Thune announced that he would introduce incremental farm bill proposals that will cover several titles of the overall farm bill. Thune has already introduced the Soil Health and Income Protection Program, a new voluntary income protection program for farmers that is designed for today’s production agriculture and soil health needs. He’s also introduced multiple proposals that would increase the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acreage cap, add cost-saving multiple use options to CRP management, and create new common-sense management options for other easement programs.

Here’s an audio clip from this past weekend’s big SDDP dinner that made me laugh. Of the allegedly 500 in attendance, as queried by Keynote speaker Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota…  after all the events of the day – after all the rah rah and cheerleading – Who is all fired up to take the lead and bring the Democrats out of the dungeon in South Dakota?

“Okay….that’s…one.”

Ann Tornberg’s SDDP. Ready to go to battle

While it wasn’t on the program for the 2017 SDDP McGovern Day Dinner, apparently former Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin was on the podium introducing her husband, former Congressman Max Sandlin who represented a district in Texas as a Democrat, until he lost election .

Stephanie explained how Max had been working with candidates, and introduced him to the podium, where he gave a talk which explained why Republicans and Donald Trump were elected in the last election.

Because (allegedly) the public doesn’t get it. They just don’t get it:

I suspect the exact opposite is true. The public DOES get it. They were just tired of the message from Democrats.

I’m going through what I’ve got on the closed door 2017 SDDP McGovern Day Dinner, specifically, the podium time given to 2016 Democrat Sacrificial Lamb for Congress Paula Hawks.

And unless my ears deceive me, did she just take a dig at SDDP Chair Ann Tornberg about not having a plan?   She had sent out an e-mail to Democrats in the run up to the dinner offering to take over as chair, and lamenting Ann Tornberg’s lack of a plan and noted “We haven’t seen a strategic plan from the state office telling us what the plan is for the next five years, the next year, or even the next six months.”

The attempted coup against Tornberg failed. But in Hawks’ speech to the crowd there was this interesting tidbit:

“We need some folks in this room tonight to form a plan… if you don’t already have one in place…”

Ouch.

South Dakota Democrats shut their day’s events coinciding with their 2017 McGovern Day Dinner to the media, and closed the doors.

And in the aftermath, even their sycophants won’t talk about it, as if some magical gag order is being enforced on what Democrats were doing on the other side of the Ramkota this past Saturday night.

So what’s a political observer to do?  What are the curious and those plain interested in what went on in the tent show after the carnival barkers closed the tent?  Of course, we have the coverage here at the SDWC!  And I’ll be bringing you parts of the event as I sift through them.

And to start – here’s the program from the event, including who helped sponsor it:

2017 SDDP McGovern Day Dinner Program by Pat Powers on Scribd

Stay tuned, as I’m just getting started.

Hot off of my e-mail.. – PP

Dear Friends,

A lot has happened since my last message to you two weeks ago.  You know you have been traveling a lot when the gas station attendants in faraway places know you by name when you walk in in the middle of the night!  Since I last wrote you I have traveled over 3,700 miles across our great state!

I spoke at the Sheriff’s conference in Deadwood to the hardworking men and women of law enforcement and then traveled to all five Lincoln Day Dinners in Watertown, Aberdeen, Brookings, Spearfish, and Rapid City.  Some people have asked how I can drive all day, go to an event or two and then drive back all night. Well, in each place I have so many friends who treat me like family and I look forward to seeing them.  Like our President, all of you give me energy, so I try to be high energy in return.

As you know, last year I fought a number of ballot issues, and while together we beat most of them, a number of them are coming again, which are bad for our state.  As I travel around this year, I speak about how we need to encourage people not to sign the petitions to “just let it on the ballot.”  Remember, DON’T SIGN IT!

The first two ballot issues I have spoken out against are MEDICAL MARIJUANA and RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA.  What other drug seeks to fit into both of these categories at the same time?  Next, Rick Weiland is at it again and now is bringing a Constitutional Amendment Version of IM 22.  He again seeks to limit your first amendment rights through the ballot measure process.  Last year, millions of dollars poured in to support the measures he wanted passed, so let’s encourage people DON’T SIGN IT!  All 3 of these measures need to be defeated!

In order to continue the momentum I am building to become South Dakota’s next Attorney General, I need your help.  Please consider contributing today to my campaign and allowing me the opportunity to continue to meet with voters.  I encourage you to go online to donate here. Please let me know if you are interested in discussing your financial support by phone, I would be happy to give you a call to give you more details.

You can follow my campaign on Facebook and Twitter or check out my website.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers!

Best,
Jason Ravnsborg
Candidate for South Dakota Attorney General