The Chairman’s Letter
By Dan Lederman, Chairman, South Dakota Republican Party
For the week ending July 13, 2018
Do you remember playing baseball or softball as a kid? Every once in a while, there might be a summer flu outbreak and you’d show up ready to play, but the other team couldn’t take the field because they didn’t have a full roster, and had to forfeit. No one blamed the team who was there on time and ready to compete.
In South Dakota, Politics are similar to a ball game, except when Republicans show up ready to compete, and the Democrats can’t take the field, they claim the system is rigged, or someone is corrupt, or the system is broken because they couldn’t take the field. That’s not correct in baseball. And it’s absolutely not correct in politics.
The latest example of it? When South Dakota Democrats failed to follow state law, and because they didn’t turn in their convention results in on time, the Secretary of State had to remove seven of their nine candidates for statewide office from the ballot. Now Democrats have to hold a new convention in August.
Their candidates for Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor, State Treasurer, Commissioner of School & Public Lands and Public Utility Commissioner were removed from the ballot because South Dakota Democrats couldn’t follow state laws that have been in place and unchanged for decades.
Democrats are using every excuse in the book as to why they don’t have candidates on the ballot. ‘It was the post office,’ they are trying to say. Or they’ve even tried to intimate that it was ‘those Republicans being mean.’ That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
What did happen was that Democrats experienced a catastrophic failure at being a political party. It was a failure at the highest levels of the party organization. Because the first rule in competing is that you show up, and the second is that you follow the rules.
As South Dakota Republican Chairman, I can guarantee you that Republicans will consistently show up. We will be ready to compete fairly, and according to the rulebook.
Sincerely,
Dan Lederman, Chairman
South Dakota Republican Party
Saw a meme today that was spot on Dan is the only chairman to successfully hold a convention for his party on the first time! Hilarious and sad all at once.
Keep up the good work GOP! Get all of our candidates elected!
Hats off to lederman for catching this.
Why the heck is the SOS office so out of touch on these major issues? They should not be accepting anything that is not done right. This is maybe the 3rd big screwup the elections division has had in a month and a half.
Ms. Krebs is phoning it in as she coasts her way out.