Rapid City Journal columnist Carroll describes Borglum as “Prairie Churchill.”

Pat Powers

Rapid City Journal freelance writer and columnist Frank Carroll is apparently a fan of State Representative Scyller Borglum, according to his latest column, in which he describes the challenger to US Senator Mike Rounds as a “Prairie Churchill.”

Her open demeanor and genuine personality shine as she recounts her dream to represent South Dakota as our next United States senator. It’s clear that she has the chops for higher office. She calls herself a person of content, an engineer’s clunky parlance describing her technical and professional skills, both of which are highly refined. And she is not alone in her self-aware assessment. She is a lifelong Republican and a Fulbright scholar who studied sustainable natural resource use in Norway. Compared to AOC, Borglum is a prairie Churchill.

Borglum moved alone into virgin territory in pharmaceutical sales in Texas and emerged with a multi-million-dollar operation. She was on top, not because she is pretty and positive — everybody in pharma sales is pretty and positive — but because she took her program to the doctors and patients who needed what she offered and sold it: Direct sales to the people who mattered.

Read the entire column here.

32 thoughts on “Rapid City Journal columnist Carroll describes Borglum as “Prairie Churchill.””

  2. “Fell in love with a fellow academic”… Frank sugar coats the fact that she married her geology professor four months after she graduated. He also fails to acknowledge she didn’t even live in SD until 2015.

    1. Who she married and when she did it means nothing. Your insinuation is only revealing of yourself. Stick with the “she’s new to SoDak” attack.

      1. Odin is Right. I do not care if a college student has amorous relations with a professor. Both are consenting adults. It’s not always a [Clinton pal] Harvey Weinstein casting couch situation, nor is this a Tracy Flick high school teacher/ student situation. We shouldn’t infantilize college students, who can make responsible decisions. Worse, IMHO, was the (reportedly) quid pro quo extramartial affair between Kamala Harris and her boss, Willie Brown. Thus, my preference for Senator Round is political, not personal. I wish the Borglums great happiness in their private relationship and in life.

        1. College students who can make responsible decisions? Can they really? I’m not convinced because we see so many of them go deep into debt earning degrees that are worthless. Maybe that lies on the shoulders of their parents, teachers and counselors who’ve convinced them college is the only way they’ll ever be successful.

  3. She’s taking her message to the people who need her?
    Who needs her?
    She got uninvited from Republican speaking events because when she was allowed to speak she tried to raise money for Democrats. Go figure.

      1. She used her opportunity to speak at Lincoln Day Dinners to raise money for a bipartisan PAC to support female candidates on all sides. So she was raising money for Democrats as well as Republicans.
        Lincoln Day Dinners are not bipartisan events.

  4. Hey, she’s a nice lady. If I was a Democrat, I’d switch parties just so I could vote for her. But since I’m a Republican, and since she has a voting record that reflects very few of my values, I will not be voting for her.

  5. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but Carroll’s article basically reads like a paid political advertisement.

      2. Not if he’s referring to the Churchill who spear headed the Gallipoli campaign. Then it is spot on.

    2. Her fake conservative stances r gonna get ripped apart. She’s a liberal, folks!

      1. Right. A Prairie Churchill missing both Prayer and Church. 😉

        Look, she can be a pro choice feminist for all I care. It’s a free country. I just can’t stand the weasel words and the duplicity. Stop dissembling. Tell the truth! Insincere, bad faith arguments (on both sides) have wrecked our public discourse.

  6. She’s nice and all but I just can’t for the life of me figure out her motivation for running at this time. Watch what she says on social media. Independents voting in a primary? What the heck is the point of a partisan political primary if your going to let some who doesn’t have a partisan political affiliation have a say? Its a partisan primary!!!!!! Independents are great people, but you lose the right to vote in a primary by not selecting a partisan affiliation. Unless of course you want to vote on the democratic side.. she talks about working together and common sense conservative all the time. Rounds has been using those phrases since the early 2000s in some capacity. It’s part of the reason he incorrectly gets painted as moderate. When in fact he votes with Trump more than 90 percent of the time. Plus Rounds has been litigated in the court of public opinion over eb5. I just dont see how she can make up ground in this race. Mike Rounds doesn’t think hes royalty, hes a regular person that’s why the majority of South Dakota likes him. I’d walk away and try again at a better time. Plus once you pick apart Rounds DC record, its actually got solid accomplishment. Hes earned one more term.

  7. If the Journal likes her, that’s not a good sign (speaking as a Black Hills native). I don’t trust half the stuff they put in that paper!

  8. she is not an inconsequential person. but an incumbent senator is a tough thing to tackle in south dakota, good record or not. her road is a rough one.

  9. I’m sorry – I don’t have anything in particular against Scyller although I don’t understand why she is running. I would not say this column is calling her a “Prairie Churchill.” It says, “Compared to AOC, Borglum is a ‘prairie Churchill.'”

    That is as much a slight of AOC as anything. It is like saying “Compared to (a stupid person), this other person is Albert Einstein.” You aren’t actually saying the person is as smart as Albert Einstein. You are insulting the first person.

  10. The column leaves me baffled. It really doesn’t articulate why she wants to run for any political office, much less that of U.S. Senator. It also doesn’t address at all Mike Rounds as a reason for her choice.

    According to my reading of the column, she’s an intelligent and successful person. That’s the introduction to a discussion, but it’s not the discussion.

    No surprise that the party establishment is protecting the incumbent – that’s what party establishments are *supposed* to do, absent a scandal. If the party establishment *doesn’t* do that basic activity, then what good is it, anyway?

    Borglum has the right and opportunity to run a primary race against a popular incumbent officeholder. She’s the underdog, carrying the burden of demonstrating that she’s not only qualified, but the *better* candidate than the incumbent to take on the general election fight and, ultimately, serve the state and the nation in the U.S. Senate. Skepticism is the predictable, reasonable early reaction to her (or any other primary challenger’s) announced candidacy.

    1. Lederman has been quiet which seems appropriate for the party chair in a primary.

  12. So, she became a millionaire by selling grossly overpriced drugs to people !? Just what SD and the USA needs, another politician with strong ties to the huge pharmaceutical industry ! NOT !

  13. I am looking forward to seeing her tax returns. Is she really a millionaire? I’m kinda wondering how she can afford to take time off work to campaign. Maybe the answer is she doesn’t need to work.

  14. Her fake conservative stances r gonna get ripped apart. She’s a liberal, folks!

  15. Calling her a Prairie Churchill is actually funny.
    FDR arranged for the purchase of Blair House as a guest house because of Churchill. He was a terrible houseguest, kept them up late at night, drinking too much as so on. The last straw was when he tried to wake the President up at 3 AM. So he was banished to Blair House. Like Churchill, Borglum has been banished, for being a terrible dinner guest.

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