The always massive Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo is in fill swing in Rapid City, and the candidates are out there in force.
Governor Noem has a booth, Senator Thune and Congressman Dusty Johnson are sharing space. Senate hopeful Mark Mowry got the checkbook out and has his own booth.
Senator Mike Rounds’ team is there running a constituent services stop, as he’s not running this cycle.
\I’m hearing anecdotal reports from the Stock Show that boothless Gubernatorial candidate Steve Haugaard has teamed up with US Senate Candidate Bruce Whalen who bought space for collecting petition signatures, since Steve was space deficient at the start of the show.
Surprisingly, no booth for Taffy Howard in her home area.
Kind of surprised at that one. They’re only running 325,000 plus people through the show, and it’s the second largest event in the state of South Dakota following the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
Patrick Schubert, one of the trio who won’t get on the ballot is also boothless, and I’m told we’re seeing nothing from Democrats.
It is West River, so there’s not a lot of dems out there. Certainly not among the group attending.
Taffy attached herself to the corner of the Trump Swag Booth. Not sure if they invited her to do so, or if she just imposed herself upon them. Keep in mind, this isn’t a Trump endorsed booth, they are just selling hats and T-shirts to make a buck. Looked like she was circulating her petition, but didn’t seem to be getting many people to stop and visit with her. If you really are a serious candidate, I would think she would rent her own booth and get some of her high priced consultants to help her staff it at the biggest event in SD before the primary in June.
I was lurking around the water cooler at Whalen campaign headquarters the other day and I overheard something that I wanted to share. I couldn’t believe my ears, but Whalen was actually inviting Noem’s campaign, Johnson’s campaign, and even Thune’s campaign to join him in the booth at the Stock show (and beyond).
Also, and brace yourselves .. some in the campaign have suspicion that Whalen and Thune are the same person since they never seem to be in the same room together.
Strange.
That said, if someone shows up and is rude I’m pretty sure they may be asked to leave.
Does anyone want to be a fly on the wall when Bruce and John have a chat?
I do.
I really do.
Like.
Really really do.