I just had a legislator forward this to me.. and it’s very eye-opening about what a Doeden administration would bring to South Dakota’s test scores and the future of South Dakota’s school kids.

Don’t worry about test scores, because that’s not what’s important to Toby. What’s important are the quality of our coaches.

and..

and..

(All of this was in the Groton Daily Independent from Wednesday November 13, 2019.)

“The athletic culture in the Groton Area School system is broken. It’s broken. It’s absolutely broken, and anyone that doesn’t believe that is either in denial, is part of the problem, or worse yet, incapable of seeing something so obviously negative happening right in front of their eyes.”

“I’m not here tonight to cast blame, though there is plenty to go around. Administrators are to blame, teachers are to blame, coaches are to blame, and parents are to blame, including me.”

“..my lackluster high school GPA and flunking out of not 1 but 2 colleges proves it. High School was simply a necessary step for me.”  

“I can’t be clear enough on this point, just participating in sports is not enough. Just offering sports to the kids is not enough. Just filling coaching vacancies for the sake of filling coaching vacancies is not enough. Just having administrators focusing primarily on academics is not enough.  If we can at least agree that athletics plays a large role in developing and preparing students for life, then we need to act like it. We need to stop acting like sports is a privilege, because they are not. Sports are a necessity.“

Well,  Not sure that bragging about flunking out of 2 colleges is what I immediately go to for a Governor.

And maybe if some of the elected politicans would quit trying to strip money away from all that reading, writing and arithmetic, then we could figure out how to fund Toby’s coaching dreams.

Toby Doeden is one of those candidates who will just say anything (Especially if it’s written on his hand).  And that was in evidence last night, as he tried to pretend he supports for our State Universities:

At around 1:23:45 in the video from the debate last night (watch the replay here), Doeden claimed…

“I love our 4 year State Universities. I attended Northern State…”

Yet, this would seem to be a different opinion than the one he expressed at the beginning of the campaign in an interview with Stu Whitney:

In a household where neither parent attended college, higher education was a goal. Doeden’s three older siblings had all completed college and started careers by the time Toby graduated from high school in 1993.

Feeling outside pressures, he accepted a football and track scholarship to Minot State University in North Dakota, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“I remember unloading my little hatchback car, getting everything moved into my dorm room, and the very night I moved in thinking I should not be here,” Doeden said. “My feeling was, ‘This is an utter waste of time.’”

He qualified for the national track meet as a freshman but had already transferred to Northern State University in Aberdeen, where he lasted about a semester before proposing to Liz and moving to nearby Groton to put business plans in motion.

Read that here.

Telling a reporter that college was an utter waste of time versus his claim last night of “attending” Northern, and claiming to love our 4 year universities seems to be somewhat discordant.

A definition Toby probably would need to add to his hand list.

NOW we know what he had written on his hand!

I laughed out loud when I read this:

I think everyone saw Toby’s notes.

Is there someone who went to the Dakota Scout debate tonight with a tin can on a string? Wondering if I can hook in to your feed to improve the sound quality?

Is it really a debate if no one outside the theater can tell what the candidates are saying? The sound was largely indecipherable from Hansen and Rhoden.  Not much better from the other two, either.

The sound was good from the moderators.. but I didn’t tune in for just the questions. Like several who are texting and emailing, I might try the replay.

Update…

Go here: https://www.newscenter1.tv/watch-now

Much better sound across the board.

Another Update..

How many notes did Toby plan on writing on his hand?

 

Senator Tamara Grove is clearly feeling the heat from State Representative Rebecca Reimer’s challenge in her race, as this weekend, Grove took to social media to insinuate – without directly naming her – that Reimer was was not supportive of rural health care.

And Rebecca wasn’t going to hear any of that nonsense, as she was quick to fire back on social media, with receipts:

The original post from Grove was then edited on facebook… Which I would interpret to guess that Tamara is double checking things, because Rebecca is ready to bring it.

Check it out on Facebook.

UPDATE: I missed this earlier. An Army of colleagues current and past of Rebecca’s came out in droves to put down Grove’s claims of Reimer not supporting rural health:

That’s a pretty long list!

From Facebook, Toby Doeden might be endorsing Marty Jackley for Congress as he should, but Marty is not getting into it in the Governor’s race.

WOW. That was not something I was expecting.

The property tax plan that was passed by the South Dakota Legislature to reallocate some existing sales taxes, and to create new sales tax revenue to offset property tax is apparently not popular in the state. As in wildly unpopular by half or more, depending on your subgroup according to SD News Watch, via the Argus Leader:

The survey of 500 registered voters across party affiliation conducted April 7-9 by Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, found 49% of respondents opposed the swapping of lower property taxes in exchange for higher sales taxes, while 33% approved and 17% were undecided. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.5%.

and..

Republicans were close to evenly split, with 45% opposing the new legislation, 42% supporting the measure and 13% undecided.

A majority of Democrats and Independents disapproved of the new laws, at 56% and 51%, respectively.

Read the entire story here.

In the Governor’s race, that’s probably not good news for Governor Rhoden and Rep. Jon Hansen, who both have been touting the sales tax shift plan, while Dusty Johnson has been critical of it.

(Toby Doeden is still clinging to the claim he’s going to eliminate property taxes without having any plan besides magic tax-eliminating fairy dust.)

Noting the unrequested endorsement(s) from Doeden PAC, it can always be worse. Like that that other endorsement for Congress, from all around awful person Phil Jensen:

Phil must be part of the very, very small subset of South Dakotans who join Bialota in applying “stand your ground” laws to 12 year old on the playground. (Not that the jury ended up agreeing.)

In case you’ve forgotten about Gubernatorial wannabe and car dealer Toby Doeden’s Political Action Committee, Dakota First Action, which he loaned hundreds of thousands to try to dump experienced lawmakers, causing the mess of a legislature we have now, the group is back with the text blasts. And in a shocker, Toby Doeden has apparently endorsed himself:

Now, I don’t think there’s any need to give Marty static, because this is kind of modus operandi for Doeden’s PAC, where they will go in and endorse someone who nether wants it, nor asked for it.  Like in Brookings last election when Doeden’s toxic PAC jumped in – uninvited and unwanted – and the PAC attention caused them to lose.   But they try to tie themselves to people they believe might win.

Except this time.

Because Doeden’s PAC has come in and endorsed Doeden. Which, if you’re coming in with your own PAC, and endorsing yourself.. well, that’s a new and novel kind of self-love.