If you recall the article that Democrat Jay Davis wrote a short time back about how Amendment V style primaries haven’t worked out how the promoters thought they would, one only has to look to recent primaries to see how it would most likely shake out in South Dakota.

Case in point, the 1994 South Dakota Gubernatorial election.

This was the election by which Governor Bill Janklow returned to the office after a hiatus, and won a primary over Governor Walter Dale Miller who was running after serving out the term of Governor George Mickelson.   At the same time on the Democrat side, Jim Beddow ran against Red Allen of Yankton, and PUC Commissioner Jim Burg.

Beddow faced Janklow in the fall, losing at about 41% to Janklow’s 55%, with Libertarian Nathan Barton picking up 4%.

If we had laws in place similar to Amendment V back then?

Republican	Bill Janklow	57,221
Republican	Walter D. Miller	48,754
Democratic	Jim Beddow	29,082
Democratic	Carrol V. Allen	12,184
Democratic	Jim Burg	11,181

The primary would have given South Dakota the choice of these gentlemen, plus possibly Libertarian Barton who ran in the fall General election.

Who would have advanced to the fall election after an Amendment V primary?  Given that it’s the two top vote recipients…..

Republican	Bill Janklow	57,221
Republican	Walter D. Miller	48,754

The two Republicans would have gotten to fight it out all over again, because Jim Beddow couldn’t get more people to vote for him than the person who finished second in the GOP contest.  And forget the libertarian, or any independent in the fall – they would have not gotten the opportunity.

One of the arguments that Amendment V proponents use is that the Amendment V Primary will cause “more moderate candidates” to be elected to office.  I don’t know that I’d consider Walt or Bill anything less than conservative in their approach.

And despite the wool that Amendment V supporters are trying to pull over our eyes – they’re not going to bring back “the good old days” for Democrat. Unless they change their ways, it’s just not going to happen.

In South Dakota, there’s a reason all of our statewide elected officials are Republicans. They’ve reflected the values of the people who have elected them, and they’ve run effective campaigns. In many cases – especially in recent years – Democrats have not offered statewide candidates who reflect the values of the electorate, and organizationally, the party has fallen apart.

As fewer and fewer South Dakotans want to identify with Democrat policies from Washington and the Democrat’s liberal elite, the opposing party has suffered greatly.

Again, these societal changes in our state are not through any machinations of South Dakota’s majority party, but because traditional Democrats who thought their party represented the little guy now see Democrats trying to things such as regulate the water in their culvert at a federal level, mandate that their local schools allow boys in girls locker rooms, and force them to buy insurance they don’t want.

That’s not anything that happened in the country they grew up in, and they view it as part of an ever more intrusive government.

Some might argue the shift started when Democrats began identifying themselves as the party of abortion, and Republicans became the party of life. And as the policies that parties identified with became more polarized, so did people.

And in church going South Dakota, that resulted in significant losses that all the primary election modification and other attempted electoral tricks in the world can’t reverse.

Amendment V Campaign Called On To Return Illegal Contributions
Dark Money Raised Illegally Mirrors Anti-Transparency of Amendment V

Fort Pierre, SD –– No on V Campaign Chair Will Mortenson has called for the Yes on V campaign to return all illegal contributions and come clean to South Dakota voters on their scheme to evade South Dakota campaign finance law. TakeItBack.Org and Open Primaries, two dark money organizations funding Yes on Amendment V, violated South Dakota law by explicitly raising funds to influence a ballot question, Constitutional Amendment V.

State law calls for organizations, including corporations like TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries, to swear under oath that no part of the contribution given to a ballot question committee was raised or collected “for the purpose of influencing the ballot question.”

TakeItBack.org issued a correspondence on October 4th (below) soliciting donations to “help us pass Amendment V,” while Open Primaries collected donations to influence Amendment V through a website called CrowdPAC (https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/74922/a-voice-for-every-voter-send-a- message-to-washington).

“The supporters of Amendment V must immediately return the illegal contributions obtained from dark money corporations that have no regard for South Dakota law. Amendment V would take party identification off the ballot so it’s no surprise that it’s being pushed by illegal, dark money from out-of- state,” said Mortenson.

“Campaign finance laws exist to protect South Dakota elections from just this type of hidden, out-of-state influence. Yes on V should give back every cent it received from TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries and apologize to the people of South Dakota for its disregard of our campaign finance laws,” Mortenson added.

As of the latest campaign finance report, Yes on Amendment V garnered 76% of its contributions from out-of-state and 92% of contributions from dark money groups like TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries who do not disclose their donors. Open Primaries alone provided $246,784.00, representing 71.92% of contributions to Yes on Amendment V.

TakeItBack.org is a 501(c)(4) corporation that does not disclose its donors. TakeItBack.org is run by long-time Democratic Party Bosses Rick Weiland and Drey Samuelson. Weiland also serves as Chairman of the Yes on Amendment V ballot committee. Open Primaries is a New York City-based 501(c)(4) corporation that does not disclose its donors. Open Primaries is an activist organization, pushing plans similar to Amendment V in several states.

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From the Mitchell Daily Republic, one long time former Democrat legislator has already written off Jay Williams. Possibly because Williams has campaigned so poorly, he can’t think of his name:

During a visit from Thune to former state legislator Mel Olson’s Advanced Placement government course at Mitchell High School on Monday, Olson predicted Thune would earn 76 percent of the vote in a race against Democratic challenger Jay Williams for a spot in the U.S. Senate.

“I mean, I’m a Democrat, and I can’t remember the guy’s name that you’re running against,” Olson joked.

And..

“I believe the voters of South Dakota want to have a real choice in this election, and my campaign is giving them that choice,” Williams said.

If that choice is to elect Thune by a 76-24 percent margin, as Olson suggests, Thune would best Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s sweeping victory over Democratic challenger Susan Wismer in the 2014 gubernatorial race in which Daugaard won the support of 70.47 of South Dakota voters.

Read it all here.

SD District 8 Conservatives October Luncheon

 The monthly South Dakota District 8 Conservatives Luncheon will be held Thursday, October 6th at 11:45 AM at the Second Street Diner, 610 Washington Ave. S., in Madison.  This month’s speaker will be Chris Nelson, South Dakota PUC Commissioner from Pierre.  His topic is “Current Events at the Public Utilities Commission.”

Please come and bring your conservative friends!  Conservatives from District 8 are invited, as well as from the surrounding area.  Order off menu, daily special available.  For information call 605-270-2991.

An e-mail blast went out today from former US Senate Candidate Rick Weiland and Drey Samuelson’s organization Takeitback.org announcing the posting of a “humorous” video, noting in part:

“Party Wars is an endorsement of South Dakota’s Amendment V,” Samuelson said, “a ballot initiative that will change the State’s partisan election system to the same nonpartisan system that Nebraska uses for its legislative races.

The video got me to click, but it was so awful and unprofessional, I went back to work. But this afternoon, one of my readers pointed out something I missed because I wasn’t interested in sitting through it.

At 1:05 there is a glaring typo “weak” vs. “week,” then, at 1:20, they light the flag on fire! They actually burned a flag and filmed it!

Wait, what? Rick Weiland and crew actually burned an American flag as part of their “humorous video?”  I had to look, and by God, they did:

Wow. Rick Weiland and crew actually burned an American flag as part of their “humorous video” in support of Amendment V.  

Somehow, I’m not seeing how they derive humor in burning the American flag.  The flag burners might think it’s an endorsement of Amendment V. But the rest of us might have a more visceral reaction.

Maybe the lesson to take away from this is that Rick Weiland and Drey Samuelson don’t really care what they burn down in their pursuit of their liberal ballot measures this election.

Because burning the American flag certainly didn’t give them any pause.

An e-mail went out this AM from the State Department of Ed to all K-12 email addresses across the state on the big Argus story on “Board making sure sales tax went to teacher pay.”

Basically, to let everyone know the Argus screwed it up.

Good morning,

You may have seen an article in the Argus Leader this morning indicating that the new money from the half-cent sales tax has resulted in an average teacher pay increase of about $1,000. The Department of Education did not provide that information to the newspaper. Unfortunately, the article compared data from the 2014-15 school year to data from the 2015-16 school year. So the dollar amounts that were compared in the chart that the newspaper created reflect data from BEFORE funds from the sales tax increase were available. (The Department of Education did not create the chart that ran with the article; the information is available in different locations on our website.)

What you should know: The 2015-16 school year will serve as the baseline year for measuring increases in teacher compensation. The data for 2016-17 is not yet available, so it’s too early to make comparisons. From what we have heard anecdotally, we expect the average increase to be significantly more than the $1,000 referenced in the article. But we will not know for certain until we have data from the 2016-17 school year.

A corrected version of the story is now online. We appreciate that the Argus Leader very quickly corrected the error.

Mary Stadick Smith
Director of Operations and Information
South Dakota Department of Education

They had a big chart and everything.. that’s no longer with the article, because it had nothing to do with the extra penny of sales tax.

From Bob Mercer at Pure Pierre Politics, he reports on how not many people are interested in being a Democrat in South Dakota:

South Dakota Democratic Party officials really need to answer to the public about why they can’t keep pace, at least proportionally, with the South Dakota Republican Party’s efforts on voter registration. The Democrats filled the ballot in the three statewide contests for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state Public Utilities Commission. But since January, Republicans have added some 9,000 registered voters and Democrats have added about 1,700. The NPA/Independents have added about 6,000.

Those who complain about one-party rule of state government and Congress in South Dakota — and who favor ballot measures that would attempt to change the dominant roles of Republicans — need to realize the Republican brand right now in 2016 is nearly twice as popular than the Democrats and NPA/Independents combined.

Read it all here.

That might be one  reason that Democrats are trying to hide their party affiliation through promoting Amendment V. 

Don’t you just hate it when secret cabals organize opposition campaigns… (but don’t raise any money, or advertise, or run a campaign):

At a news conference Monday afternoon, supporters of 3 ballot measures claimed the state Republican Party and Chamber are working together to push a “Vote No on Everything” campaign, which was a shocking revelation to both state agencies.

Supporters of initiated measures 21, 22 and Amendment T revealed what they call a secret plan from the republican establishment.

“We’ve heard directly from Republican legislators and business people in this state that the state GOP and the state Chamber of Commerce are coming together in an effort to do a blanket “Vote No” campaign,” IM 21 sponsor Steve Hildebrand said.

And…

“There is no concerted effort to work with any group for a “No on Everything” campaign,” Ryan Budmayr stated.

KSFY News reached out to Hildebrand again Monday afternoon, after the Republican Party denied planning the ad campaign.

“I think they’re lying to tell you that they’re not running this strategy, because they are,” Hildebrand urged.

And..

Hildebrand would not say who told him the party is planning the ad campaign.

Read it here.

He can’t say WHO is letting him in on all these nefarious & evil Republican and Chamber-type plans…. but there’s a plan! Trust him, there’s a plan!

Er, yeah.

So, maybe when Hildebrand organized this paranoid presser on a secret “vote no” campaign, he should have also announced that it is all in his head.

(But that’s what they’d tell you. They’re all in on it.)

Before he was a State Representative, Scott Munsterman became a published author when he penned his book “A Vision for South Dakota” which laid the groundwork for his economic plan as he ran for South Dakota Governor.   It showed Scott as very intelligent and introspective, and the kind of man that people could see in the position of Governor.

While ultimately Dennis Daugaard prevailed in the primary race and later became Governor, his reputation for thoughtful contemplation has followed him during his legislative career, which is ending this coming January.

Scott has been quite busy with many things over the course of the past year. But one thing I hadn’t expected of him was that he was working on a new book, which recently was listed on Amazon.com:

Unfinished Business is an exceptional guide directed right into men’s hearts and stances on identity to uncover what has hindered their growth as godly men and what potentials from God they haven’t embraced yet. Each chapter focuses on areas in men’s lives where fear, uncertainty and other factors have hindered the development of a man’s potential. The author shapes his words to be straightforward, yet encouraging, to assist readers to prompt action and achieve the significant impacts they were created to accomplish in the world around them. Unfinished Business resulted from the author’s life lessons and experiences over two decades of participating and leading men fellowship groups.

Read that all here.

While it’s not as “policy wonky” as his first book, it’s no less worthwhile, and serves as an introspective call for men to look at their lives as if they are called to fulfill a mission greater than serving one’s self.