The Dakota Scout newspaper just released a story on-line about some of the convention fights that were had this last year at the GOP Convention.. but they might want to revisit one of their sources.
“Near as I can tell, these people hate Republicans,” the Watertown Republican said while referring to GOP delegates responsible for nearly upsetting Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden and Attorney General candidate Marty Jackley’s nominations at the South Dakota Republican Party Convention.
and…
“They didn’t like the outcome so they want to change the rules that favor themselves,” said Dave Roetman, an influential political operative in South Dakota politics who helped earn election victories for Johnson and other candidates whom his intra-GOP adversaries peg as “far-right” Republicans.
Dave Roetman is influential in SD politics? Er, maybe several elections ago, before he was ousted as chair by the Minnehaha County GOP, quietly removed as political director by the State GOP and most recently shown the door by the Monae Johnson campaign, as they promptly off-loaded him after the convention.
I’m not sure who else Dave can point to as support his alleged influence, as in his latest stint as co-founder of the Patriot Ripple Effect, a group who has been trying to replace incumbent elected officials, his track record hasn’t been so hot.
The other big item in the article by Sneve is that he completely and utterly ignores the main issue that those in local county Republican leadership have with what has come to be a biennial feature of the Republican Convention process, as brought to a head at the last Republican State Central Committee. It’s that the people who come to convention simply to vote for these candidates show up for one day. And like a liquidation sale, it’s one day only.
More than one County GOP official has lamented the fact that the precinct committeeman and committeewoman positions were originally set up to assist the county organizations with their campaign activities in the counties, but many of the people who are coming in for the Saturday convention candidate vote are open about saying they only signed up to vote for their candidate and they’re never to be seen again.
They don’t volunteer, they don’t donate. Most won’t ever show up for a meeting. Yet, they believe they’re entitled to be a representative voice of the Republicans in their precinct, which their votes at last couple of conventions don’t exactly illustrate. And party leadership is getting a bit tired of it.
The world is ran by people who show up. And that’s what both the GOP Central Committee and Senator Schoenbeck each want to ensure in their own way.
Roetman is certainly on the outs with formal GOP structure, but I don’t think it is a stretch to say he is influential in the broader party. This entire conversation is about fringe people signing up to be delegates and swaying the nomination process, such as Barnett losing and Rhoden having to sweat the Haugaard challenge. Roetman was certainly influential in all of that!
The County Central Committees consist of a precinct committee man and woman from each precinct, The county chair, vice chair, secretary, treasurer,state committee man, state committee woman, the Republican state legislators residing in the county, and Republican elected officials residing in the county, limited to auditor, treasurer, register of deeds, sheriff, states attorney, coroner, and the county commissioners.
Out of this collection of people, the only ones who can vote at the convention are the precinct committee men and women, the county chair, the vice chair, the secretary, the treasurer, and the state committee men and women, plus three delegates at large.
All those other people, all those other elected officials in the county, they don’t get to vote at the convention unless they also compete for one of the other positions.
Notions that the precinct committee men and women represent the will of the people are refuted by the percentages of votes for Steve Haugaard in the primary votes for Governor and the convention votes for LG in a number of counties:
Minnehaha County primary 29%, convention 69%
Fall River County primary 22%, convention 75%
Pennington County primary 27%, convention 44.5%
Yankton County primary 30%, convention 76%
So in addition to filing false statements about being willing and able to serve as precinct committee members and women if they are elected, in many counties they didn’t come close to truly representing the will of the voters. They only wanted the job title so they could show up for one day, contribute NOTHING, and disappear, never doing the actual job they signed up for.
Well said Mrs Beal’s
Agreed!
And yet you dont do any outreach yourself anne
Wait, in the primary Haaugard ran for governor, at the convention he was on the ballot for Lt Gov wad he not? Two different positions, which is nit against tge will of the people at all. If tge peoppe placed tge committmen and women in tgus position ans Haugard placed himself on the convention ballot for Lt gov I see no harm on that. The peoppe placed Noem on tge ballot for Gov while the precincts voted for Haggard for Lt Gov. I see nothing wrong here. Let’s stop causing divide. It’s OK to have divided party sanctions….
If you believe in tge constitution, you agree.
this does bring up the curious situation that Monae, who campaigned on issues of election integrity, recruited people to file false declarations regarding their ability or willingness to serve in those positions if elected.
Precinct committeemen should ve holding town halls in precincts to talk with the people, to discuss candidates and issues. I intend to do that
The majority of those are right-wingers who hate or dislike Republicans. They are the RINO’s who only use the Republican name when it is to their advantage. Most won’t even put Republican on their materials. Now that is a true RINO, but they use the Democrat tactic of calling you what they are.
No they hate the RINOs …. Keep telling us we’re irrelevant we’ll keep winning elections and you’ll become the democrats because that’s basically who you’ve become want to change the rules cause you can’t win just like the democrats
I am a precinct committeeman, and I pride myself on being a ANTI-federalist just as Jefferson, Henry, and Mason. I am a staunch supporter of state rights, abs all power held in the people. I will always cast a vote for rge most pro-state right person, who places the needs of the state first and foremost above all foriegn states, and D.C
There, there, feel better now? We know it’s very uncomfortable for you to have a little turbulence at the convention. Darn those nasty dissenters of shoe-in candidates anyway!
The reality is that you have many conservatives that want more from the party than it has been delivering. I am glad to see some representation towards that end.
They aren’t representing anybody sane.
In 2014 they successfully introduced, and had the votes to pass, a ridiculous resolution calling for the impeachment of President Obama because….well they didn’t articulate why, they just wanted him impeached. For no particular reason. That was such an embarrassment the rules were changed to prevent the introduction of resolutions from the floor.
In 2018 a lot of them showed up to support Lance Russell forAG. This wouldn’t have been remarkable except that so many of them came from counties that didn’t have county party exec boards. They didn’t want to be bothered actually creating boards and serving as county chairmen, vice chairs, secretary,treasurer, etc. That would be WORK. They created chaos by violating rules against putting campaign materials on the tables at the Governor’s Dinner, and just generally being annoying.
In 2020, we had a resolution acknowledging the Republican Party’s origin as the abolitionist party and recognizing June19th as a good day to celebrate the Emancipation Act. Taffy Howard organized her army of “true conservatives” to get it defeated. Apparently “true conservatives” aren’t fans of the 13th Amendment, either. After THAT performance, I didn’t think Joe Biden’s declaration “they’re gonna put y’all back in chains!” wasn’t as ridiculous as so many thought.
And this year they tried to defund the convention and bankrupt the party by voting themselves all $150 each; they were dissatisfied with the convention and wanted their money back. That was on Thursday.
On Friday they stood in opposition to boilerplate resolutions thanking the chairman for his leadership and supporting the re-elections of Thune, Noem and Johnson. Fortunately they didn’t have the votes to defeat that one. Can you imagine the way the press would have announced the SDGOP’s refusal to endorse their own candidates?
And this was all before the vote on Saturday. Anybody who tells you the only thing the “establishment” didn’t like was the way the present on Saturday is FOS.
Lee Schoenbeck has a good idea: take the nominations of the LG, AG, and SOS away from the convention, and make the candidates compete in the primary election, so they won’t recruit these precinct committee men and women who have caused us so much embarrassment.
Can’t win change the rules pack the courts have same day voter registration you have no idea what path you’re going to Owen let’s change how we’ve done the system because we’re losing what a bunch of hypocrites
Except that the people who want to change the rules did win. Literally, every single time. There is an extremist far-right sect of the republican party that has a “holier than thou” attitude. They are not in touch with the far greater majority of republicans in South Dakota. But they are very good at recruiting people who have little to no knowledge about politics and getting them to vote in their favor.
If you are so foolish to put those races in the primary you will guarantee!! Establishment victories with which crony can raise thr most money….just whar the Establishment wants
Perhaps the party should ask itself why there’s so many whackadoodles in the first place. Could Lindsay Graham’s prediction about nominating Trump be coming true?
I’d argue that Trump is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. Balkanization of the American political landscape started before him, but he has certainly aggravated it.
Imagine that; a GOP Delegate blandly referencing Joe Biden’s delirious speech about MAGA Republicans.
Hoo boy. . . Glad I don’t own THAT one!
Apparently you cannot (or will not) recognize that the retail politics so adoringly embraced by “the establishment” has become the wholesale giveaway of Conservative values; then deign to proclaim dissenters as insane!
I wonder. . . are you actually looking at the state of our nation? Do you really believe that a Red Wave Reform will take place when there is so much polite acquiescence to crime, open borders, outrageous budget blowouts, fraudulent voting, along with open hostility to the nuclear family, to faith, to the Constitution, to simple patriotism?
I believe it’s high time we gave rapt attention to the realities of the situation at hand, instead of to who’s rocking the boat at chummy GOP conventions.
1. I see you sneaking in fraudulent voting. Trump lost fairly because he was incredibly divisive. Get over it.
2. Forgive me for cackling about you whining about budget blowouts. Sorry, what happened to the deficit when taxes were dropped and Trump kept right on spending?
3. Excuse for for rolling my eyes at your whinging about broken laws given the prior President.
You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts, bud.
@ Anonymous: You’re missing the point — I’m not defending Republicans, esp. those who are game to go right along with grotesque overspending for the sake of political expediency and bi-partisanship; I’m calling them out.
As far as my belief that the election was fraudulent, let me hear just one more time how Joe Biden got 81 million votes. Is it somehow supposed to be a persuasive argument that this all-time record number of POTUS votes (for both candidates, no less) occurred because of Trump’s “divisiveness” —
‘Get yourself a divisive candidate, and they’ll come pouring out of the woodwork to cast their votes — works every time!’
Got any more election insights for me now, Mr. Dominion? Don’t forget to connect to the router!
To make sure I understand: you are confused why a divisive President would drive turnout? A guy whose mantra of owning the libs would not cause the other side to mobilize against him? Are you high?
Lay off the Fox News pal, it’s robbing your critical thinking skills.
Nailed it, Anne.
All Dem moves and they don’t even know it.
Remember Stace in 2014? He’d have rather voted for Weiland than Rounds. That’s the same mentality many of these have but can’t even tell you why… Believe me, I’ve asked.
Why is it the legislatures business how a party nominates its candidates?
It reminds me if Dennert wanting to let independents vote in gop primaries.
Private organizations.
Next we will tell Sanford how they have to run their business.