Lederman to Dems – It’s quality, not quantity

Pat Powers

I felt that burn all the way up in arctic Brookings. South Dakota GOP Chair Dan Lederman pointed out to the Associated Press that while Dems may have filled some seats this election, that’s only part of the job:

The South Dakota Democratic Party said Thursday that 110 Democratic candidates are running for 101 out of the 105 seats in the Legislature. Democratic Party Chair Ann Tornberg says it’s another sign of the momentum her party has in South Dakota and around the nation.

State GOP Chairman Dan Lederman says Republicans plan to run a vigorous campaign this season with 115 candidates running for 97 legislative seats. He said the party applauds South Dakota Democrats for their “biennial pantomime of pretending they’re a viable political party,” but that “quantity should not be equated with quality.”

Read it all here.

Since the press generally takes what they want from quotes, I did ask Lederman for the full statement, and he was happy to provide it:

The South Dakota Republican party applauds South Dakota Democrats for their biennial pantomime of pretending they’re a viable political party, at the same time they’re on life support from the National Democrat organization. As they have demonstrated time and again, talk is cheap, and filling seats with warm bodies might make for a nice press release, but quantity should not be equated with quality.

Democrats have a long precedent of using placeholders who have no intention of running – much less serving – in Pierre, and if the past several cycles are any indication, we’ll see at least a dozen of them drop out before the deadline to replace candidates in August.

Republicans have 115 Candidates running for 97 legislative seats, and the difference between the parties is that Republicans did not have to beg people to fill a slot. Our candidates came forward on their own, and most of the candidates from the GOP will be successful in their campaigns.

South Dakota Republicans take nothing for granted, and we’re already making plans to run a vigorous campaign effort this season, whether the people our candidates are running against now are the same ones in the fall.

Ouch. The party of ‘Bern’ is feeling the burn.  🙂

9 thoughts on “Lederman to Dems – It’s quality, not quantity”

  1. It’s kinda like the left having CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc, and the conservatives having Fox News. CNN and the rest stink, and Fox News, while not perfect, is much better and certainly more honest.

    If Corey Heidelburger is one of the candidates filling up the 105 slots, you can consider that slot not legitimately filled as he has no chance whatsoever. The SD Democrat Party isn’t that far left and devoid of integrity.

    1. Looks like Hamburgler brought back his friend old Porter Lansing who has a history of vile attacks against Catholics and Jews to help him with his campaign.

      1. Porter! I haven’t seen his mug for quite a while; times have been good! I thought the left was the tolerant side, but intolerance of any viewpoints counter to their own is intolerable to them. Look at the Sinclair Broadcasting situation.

        1. I could just see the hateful comments made by Porter & Co. on that blog posted on campaign material or on a billboard up there connecting it to CAH. They were BAD!

  3. 31% of South Dakotans are registered Democrats, while they only hold 15% of the seats in the legislature. The only excuse for that is abysmal leadership from both state and national party leaders, as well as apathetic Dem voters. SD is seen as a throw-away red state, and that’s reflected in both the poor quality (and, historically, quantity) of viable candidates.

    There is danger though, Mr. Lederman: Pierre is an echo chamber for Republicans. There’s not enough opposition to demonstrate areas where the R’s are out-of-step with the electorate, which by numbers alone show a distinct disconnect between the conservatives in Pierre, and the slightly more left-leaning populace as a whole. Get too far out of step, and there’ll be a reckoning at some point. Are we seeing this happening today? Debatable, but it could be the tip of the iceberg, no?

  4. The SD Democrats do have some very impressive candidates that would serve their constituents well if elected and just like the other party some bad apples too. Leadership is terrible.

Comments are closed.