In the media recently, the failed Paula Hawks campaign has been quick to point fingers at the SDDP for fumbling the ball during the 2016 elections over and over. And over. But as one Democrat operative writes over at the Drinking Liberally Sioux Falls website, it sounds as if Paula might want to hold a mirror up to her own effort:
In South Dakota Democratic Party (SDDP) politics, the party’s legislative candidates will meet Saturday at noon at the VFW in Sioux Falls to seek a way forward after the disasters of the last two election cycles. Paula Hawks has publicly complained that the SDDP didn’t support her campaign sufficiently. This sounds like sour grapes to me. Her campaign was liberally staffed with operatives who were primarily responsible for the SDDP’s disastrous showing in 2014. The only difference being the staff got bonuses for their hard, if unsuccessful, work that year. The Hawks campaign ended without any money. Its staff is probably looking at the SDDP for a bump and future employment.
While the SDDP effort was a record setting miserable failure, given her track record (remember the worst campaign rollout in State History) I think she can shoulder the blame for her mess al by herself.