I can’t decide whether that’s self-awareness, or a lack thereof which is just a little too close to the target?

Flags at Half-Staff Statewide in Honor of Patriot Day

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Larry Rhoden ordered that flags be flown at half-staff statewide from sunrise until sunset on Friday, September 11, 2026, as a mark of respect for Patriot Day, which recognizes the 2,977 innocent souls who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

“The horrific 9/11 attack shook our nation to the core. And in that moment of darkness, Americans came together and stood with one another,” said Governor Larry Rhoden. “As we honor the 2,997 innocent souls who lost their lives, it is my hope that we once again come together as a nation, united by the things that matter most. Please join me in praying for all the families who still carry loss today.”

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South Dakotans just came off of a tremendous wave of elections.

We had the June Primary Elections. A number of municipal elections, including a historic election in Sioux Falls where Christine Erickson was the first woman elected to the office of Mayor of our State’s largest city (despite Liz May’s opposition to women being acknowledged in the South Dakota Constitution). This was quickly followed by the Democrat and Republican State Conventions, where constitutional office candidates were chosen.

And finally we had hard-fought July 28 Republican Primary runoff election for Governor – another first in South Dakota state history.  Even this week, we had a sort-of National Republican convention, which was more of a campaign rally than an actual convention where people voted.

Since then, one thing I’ve noticed with a number of candidates – at least on my side of the aisle – is that for many there is a  bit of disengagement at the moment. Even though early voting is only a week away.  Seriously. We start voting on September 18th.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. A number of them are fired up and organized and ready to rock. But at the same time, I think some people are weary of politics. There does not seem to be the same sense of motivation that we’ve seen when candidates had 2 ½ months off with their families to recharge their batteries.

What do you think? Are people suffering campaign fatigue and disengagement from politics?

Or are they ready to press forward because they just want to get it all over with?

From x.com/Twitter:

Good to see Nathan and Brooke with the South Dakota Retailers Association in Pierre and honored to receive their 2026 Hero of Main Street Award. 98.9 percent of businesses in South Dakota are considered small businesses, and I’ll continue to support their operations at the… pic.twitter.com/iskiOinhlo

— Senator Mike Rounds (@SenatorRounds) September 9, 2026

If you haven’t read this hilarity, it might be worth the trip to the South Dakota Freedumb Caucus’ website. This week, they take stock of the fact that only one of them will be returning to the legislature this next session. And of course, they have to blame someone.

As opposed to putting the harsh glare of the spotlight on themselves for being the worst of the worst and embarrassing themselves because of their legislation and conduct, they blame the House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach:

The conservative movement in South Dakota recently experienced a significant impact on its conservative voting bloc in the legislature. These are the conservative lawmakers who fight for the values itemized in the South Dakota Republican Platform, including limited government, lower taxes, individual responsibility, and election integrity. Unfortunately, due to massive anti-conservative PAC spending and a failure by the Republican House Majority Leader to unite conservatives during the session and ahead of the election, the Establishment wing of the South Dakota GOP has taken control of the legislature and the Governor’s office.

and..

Republican House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach recently gave a self-serving podcast interview to one of the state’s most liberal media organizations, the South Dakota Searchlight on August 14, 2026. In this interview, Rep. Odenbach misdiagnosed the state and path of South Dakota politics, demonstrating either deliberate or blind ignorance of the facts surrounding his attempt to run a “conservative term.”

and..

Rep. Odenbach ignores the fact that he was the Majority Leader in this liberal Searchlight interview. He was the person 100% responsible for unity in the House Republican caucus. Numerous times throughout the legislative term, Rep. Odenbach lectured conservatives, spoke to the media about them, and attempted to tear them down rather than finding common ground among the three voting blocs. To establish unity, there must be baseline guiding principles to unite around. In this case, we have the Republican platform that must be followed. As the Republican Leader, Rep. Odenbach should regularly point to these guiding principles, not just half the time, but all the time. Doing so would have helped him be an effective leader.

Read the entire bag of silliness here.

I notice no one is taking any pride of authorship. The only free-dumber left standing is Phil Jensen, otherwise Jordan Mason has been the groups’ errand boy over the years, and neither one of them is putting their name to it.

Not that Scott Odenbach should get off scot-free. The Republican House has not exactly been a unified body over the past 2 years. In fact, it has been a disaster of divisiveness, where leadership under Odenbach and Jon Hansen did literally nothing to seek consensus or middle ground.   The group you might term a ‘Republican caucus of normalcy’ regularly stomped all over some of the most egregious legislation coming through the House in year 1. And by year 2, their alliances were even stronger.  Leadership didn’t lead. They were just an obstacle that serious legislators went around.

But for Phil Jensen, the remaining member of the Freedom caucus to try to cast blame that his group lost epically because everyone else is a bunch of RINO’s and liberals who ganged up on his group is more than laughable.  For more than a decade, Phil has been a national embarrassment to the Republican Party.  They haven’t been the “pure Republicans.”  Just puerile ones.

God forbid we have an election cycle where the voters finally catch on.

Arriving in an envelope mailed from Indianapolis, the SDGOP is sending out fundraising letters to their donor base.

And it might be one of the worst fundraising letters ever, as the former 32-year Democrat chairing the party actually tells Republican donors that he was a 32-year Democrat, and that Summit Carbon outspent him.. even though that was a ballot measure.

And we find that the Republican Party has no money for things such as proofreading:

I think the biggest blunder is where they ask for $1000, $500, $250, etcetera in the body of the letter, but when they got to the bottom, they’d be happy if grandma sent them a $10 check for their birthday. Almost as if when Eschenbaum says the party needs to raise $50,000, they’d be happy to gather $500 in $10 checks.

I suspect that with all the formatting issues, a complete abandonment of grammar, and a rambling semi-coherent mess of a fundraising appeal, this might be another one of those fundraising drives where they end up spending more on the letter than they raise from it.

Candidates, if you’re writing your own fundraising appeal, here’s a few good examples of what NOT to do.

Moving on.

From KOTA News, it appears that the second largest political party lost something, and now they’re asking for it back:

Officials say fewer than half of the more than 5,000 voters who switched have switched back, only about 2,000 as of this week.

Officials are asking everyone to do so immediately, saying this could severely hurt the Democratic Party by making it significantly harder for its candidates to win this November.

Read the story here.

Well, what did they think was going to happen?

Yesterday the SDGOP sent out a plea for volunteers to the mailboxes of Republican County Chairs and others.  Except they may have shot themselves in the foot by noting who is sponsoring the training. In part…:

and…

And that just screeched everything to a halt. The SDGOP is pushing precinct level training as organized in part by the goofballs at SD Canvassing?

Since when are they a Republican affiliated group? Because last we know, they spent their time on paranoia about electronics in elections, and finger (aka hand) counting. Which never really seemed to impress anyone.

I won’t go into the conspiracies over the CIA affecting the algorithms.

But, that’s who they’ve got organizing these trainings?

Hard Pass.

 

Caught this on facebook yesterday. Can’t imagine the host list is going to get people to open up pocketbooks on behalf of Heather Baxter who the event is to support:

The fundraiser is featuring Steve Haugaard, who is still trying to cling to relevance ever since challenging Kristi Noem in the primary and losing, and then Larry Rhoden for Lt. Gov at convention way back in 2022.

This year had him endorsing Toby Doeden in the primary, so I’m not sure how many followers of his political acumen he has left.

Then you can add Aaron Aylward who also endorsed Doeden (in runoff), Tony Kayser who lost his primary, and a host credit for the “Comfort King.”  “Comfort King,” which is code for the nutty mattress guy, Chris Larson. The same Chris Larson who used to take to substack to complain that “Nefarious shadow groups are somehow controlling the weather,” as well as gaze into Haugaard’s eyes and tell him he should have been Governor.

I can honestly say this does not spur me to action to open up my checkbook or anything else to Heather Baxter.

 

What do they say about people who forget the past? They are doomed to repeat it,

How are people forgetting the last time Brian Bengs ran for US Senate in 2022, when he got his clock cleaned by John Thune for being a goofy tax-and-spend liberal Democrat?  Because not much has changed, except he’s kind of skipping over his whole party identification thing this year against Mike Rounds.   I was reviewing old material from the last time Brian Bengs ran for the US Senate, and came across this gem from 2021, where Brian Bengs was explaining how we need to blow up the US tax system. By having all states impose income taxes.

From my post in 2021, where Bengs was quoted from his campaign announcement:

His plan would exempt people from federal income tax if they make up to four times the median income. In South Dakota, that’s $124,000. That means, he said, with income verification, no taxes need to be filed, but also no tax refunds.

and..

The goal, he said, is to shift the tax burden to the states, which then create their own systems.

 and..

Bengs said one program he would advocate cutting would be federally subsidized flood insurance..

Read it here.

So, Bengs’ plan is that he wants more state taxes?  Hmm. If memory serves, who was the last person who advocated for that?  That would be Senator Thune’s last opponent, Jay Williams!

“Instead of looking for spending cuts, we must look for ways to increase tax revenue. Look at yourself, if you have property, ask for property taxes to be raised. If you have income, lobby for a state income tax. If you buy lots of things, go for a sales tax.”

Read that here.

Is the election over yet?