Roll Call is reporting this morning that one of the only two potentially competent candidates that South Dakota Democrats have is taking a pass for 2016.
Brendan Johnson, son of former US Senator Tim Johnson, confirmed to Roll Call that he’s going to be spending time working on his law practice for the next few years:
But Johnson is now officially in the private sector. On Monday, Robins Kaplan LLP announced he has joined the firm and will open a new office in Sioux Falls, S.D.
“My focus is exclusively right now on building a national law practice,” Johnson told CQ Roll Call. As for a political campaign, “I haven’t given it any thought, nor do I have any sort of political plan.”
and…
Democrats have a thin bench in Republican-leaning South Dakota. There was Johnson and former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, now the general counsel and vice president of corporate development for Raven Industries.
The race is rated Safe Republican by the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report/Roll Call.
“Democrats have a thin bench in Republican-leaning South Dakota?” Thin? It’s so darned anorexic that people are starting to talk.
The ‘thin bench’ is far worse than Roll Call cites, because half of the Democrat insiders hate Herseth, considering her too conservative, as evidenced by the fact they keep trying to shove members of the Weiland family in her path.
How thin is the Democrat’s bench? This last election, Democrats had to start importing candidates from out of state to fill important candidate positions. That should speak volumes to the fact that it’s not looking promising for the bench to fill out any time soon.
i hope the tea party watches the decline of the democrat party. that’s what the gop would look like if the tea party was running it and chasing all of the “closet democrats” away. the people of sd get what they want at the polls every election. if they don’t want you, figure out why.
i’m anon 8am. i knocked my id out of the autofill somehow.
I’d still like to see where he’s polling.
This is politics 101. No one is going to publicly state they’re interested until they announce. If you asked Jackley, Mickelson, Michels, or any other possible future candidate for political office if they are thinking about running, the response will be that he or she is “focused exclusively right now on (insert current role or title or position)” and hasn’t thought about future political plans.
That said, I predict Brendan sits out in 2016.
I predict he sit ’16 out but I don’t think it would be a negative for him to run and lose. Stephanie Herseth did it in 2002 and 2004. Get in and stand for something as a candidate. Be a man of the people Democrat. Take Kristi Noem on and let the chips fall. I bet at worst he gets 46% of the vote and at best she gets 54% of the vote. Throw in a third party conservative candidate and who knows what could happen.
Sometimes it’s better to throw caution to the wind and do what you feel compelled to do rather than stand on the sidelines.
Are there not any up and coming attorneys in SF who would like to take Noem on? Why would Debbie come to SD if the SDDP is in such shambles?