South Dakota Republican Party leadership manages to blow 18 year trend. What are Republicans going to do about it?

From facebook:

The State Republican Party had effectively shut out Democrats from gaining legislative seats since 2008. Until last night.

GOP Party Chairs Karl Adam, Bob Gray, Tim Rave, Craig Lawrence, Pam Roberts, Dan Lederman, and John Wiik all managed – at the very least – to hold the line on the number of Democrats in the State Legislature when they weren’t achieving greater numbers of Republicans serving in Pierre.  Seven Chairmen across an incredible span of 18 years.  Until now.

Until the Republican Party changed direction from an effective organization into one that seemingly cares less about electing Republicans, and more about people getting on their own personal soapboxes.

Remember how Chairman Eschenbaum’s term of office began?

He was more concerned about “weeding out fake Republicans,” despite himself having been a 32-year Democrat.  He attacked the Executive Director for the party. He attacked the Republican Party’s top elected officials. He wanted scorecards, and declared “We don’t need any more money thrown to the state GOP than what we need to operate.”

Well, how did that go? Not so good for the person who by literally every measure is the worst State GOP Chair in modern state history.  Yet, he’s said to already be telling people he wants another turn at bat? He really might want to be rethinking this.

I’ve heard rumors that there are already others thinking of entering the contest.  Toby Doeden’s name has come up in those conversations.  I also heard Leslee Unruh’s name mentioned.  I’m not sure either one would fill the bill.  The job is not about using it as a platform for seeking office or promoting a cause. In fact, it might be the opposite. It’s not glamorous at all. It is about organization, leadership, and the ability of the chair to suborn their own desires for the needs and success of the organization.

The first thing that Craig Lawrence had to do when he took office was to stabilize the finances of the party – he, and I think his wife as well – were signing notes to guarantee repayment for big dollars, so the party could keep the lights on and the doors open.  Not something that a lot of people will stand up to do or have the ability to do.

Good chairs have the ability to communicate with and motivate various factions within the party. Lederman was remarkably good at that. He could talk to Phil Jensen as easily as he spoke with our Congressional delegation. The current one has a hard time keeping from attacking our elected officials.  They also need to have a mind for campaign strategy. Kudos to Gray and Rave who had strong ideas for gaining advantage and running campaigns against Democrats.

Others who have led the party in that list above were good at a number of other things such as organizational leadership and fundraising tasks. You can’t run a party if you can’t raise the money to do it with.

And here we find ourselves at an 18 year low. We’ve officially started losing races. We’re challenged financially. And organizationally, we have sitting legislators and county GOP chairs out campaigning for Democrats, because they have more alliance with the DRA than the GOP.

Now, we just have to see if we can find someone qualified, willing and able to provide leadership who will not be seeking the limelight, but will navigate the party through an active mine field before the SDGOP loses any more elections.