Former 32-year Democrat in charge of SDGOP announces re-election bid. Despite his record.

Had a note from someone who was attending the Fall River County Republican dinner this weekend:

I didn’t know if you had heard – Jim Eschenbaum announced he is running for re-election as state party chair during the Fall River LDD last night.

That was not something I had heard. And it was not something I had expected.

It also really begs the question why does Jim Eschenbaum think he’s earned another chance at bat?

• The Republican party might be the most divided it has been in the last century. What has the chair done to bring the party together?
• Fundraising might be at the most abysmal level in modern history – in last FEC report, $20 was raised. Democrats raised over $24,000 in this period.
• When was the last state party sponsored event you heard of? Conventions don’t count. I’m talking actual events for fundraising or media attention.
• AI slop on Facebook has become the communication tool of choice. When was the last time the party issued a press release? (Hint, it was the chair facilitating an attack on Senator Thune)
• How many times has the chair attacked our statewide elected officials during his tenure?
• How much candidate assistance has the party provided under Eschenbaum? Has he reached out to help new candidates?
• How has the party promoted the GOP slate of candidates up and down the ticket? Besides occasional posting on facebook.
• Where is the SD Republican Party headquarters?  Because last I checked, there isn’t one anymore. Not in Pierre. Not in Sioux Falls.
• Does the SDGOP have actual employees at this point? There aren’t any “staff” noted on the website.

It really begs the question of what function the South Dakota Republican Party serves at this point? What has it become over the course of the last two years?

If the Republican State Central Committee truly believes that this is a direction that they’re happy with, then by all means they should return leadership to the hands of Eschenbaum, a former 32-year Democrat who claimed at the onset of his tenure that he didn’t “need any more money thrown to the state GOP.”  How has that worked for us?

But if party leaders think we can do better than the slow desiccation of the State Republican party that we’ve watched, one where fewer and fewer South Dakotans find commonality with, they should recruit someone to lead the organization back to functionality.