Styling themselves as a rebellious element in state politics, libertarians talked a lot earlier in the year when they put forth a slate of candidates.. but the rebellion seems to have fizzled out.
You might have to reach deep & far back into your memories, but allegedly there were Libertarians running in the 2020 fall election in South Dakota. Way back several months ago, they were running the largest group of Senate candidates ever.
However, on the day before the election, they appear to have proven themselves to literally be the weakest and most inept group of candidates the Libertarian Party has ever offered in the state.
Why do I have this opinion? Look at their campaign finance reports. It’s literally as if Dean Wormer is reading off the Delta House’s grades before he kicked them out of Faber College.
- Daryl Root for State Senate (District 04) – Raised nothing. Spent nothing. And said some crazy stuff on the internet about legalizing drugs.
- Adam Jewell for State Senate (District 05) – Raised $466, spent $419. Against Lee Schoenbeck who might literally be unmatched in fundraising ($84k) and retail campaigning, he likely was invisible.
- Gregory Baldwin for State Senate (District 17) – Apparently has already given up and filed his termination report on 10/19. Raised nothing. Spent nothing.
- Alexander Martin for State Senate (District 20) – Raised $1.10. Spent $1.10.
- CJ Abernathey for State Senate (District 23) – Hadn’t filed a campaign report as of last week. Did appear on TV to defend displaying the confederate flag on Gettysburg police patches. Didn’t bother to appear for court when he was sued for non-payment of rent by a landlord.
- Kent Wilsey for State Senate (District 29) – actually appears to have had campaign activity. He raised $1,575.00, and spent $1,449.66, with $627.52 on signs, and $43 on cards. I doubt that’s enough to make a dent, by far.
- Gideon Oakes for State Senate (District 30) – Gideon is literally the only Libertarian who is approaching a legitimate campaign. He raised $6,228.92 (with another 2k supplemental), and has spent $5,323.39 so far. His Republican opponent, Julie Frye Mueller in the last couple of weeks came out and crossed Republican party lines to endorse an independent over a Republican colleague in another race, which might have given Oakes cause to rally Republicans to cross party lines. But I don’t know if he’s effectively capitalized on it, or made the case at this point.
- Devin Saxon for PUC – Raised nothing. Spent Nothing. And literally did nothing outside of making memes on his facebook page.
- Randy “Uriah” Luallin – I can’t find a FEC Report, because I don’t know that he ever raised or spent enough to trigger the FEC reporting threshold. (FEC reports his last campaign in 2012, so that might be an issue).
With maybe 2 of 9 candidates actually attempting an actual campaign, the Libertarian’s class of 2020 has not shaken the establishment.
If anything, the rebellious element among the state’s political parties seems to have hardly had the initiative to get off the couch.
Slow news day?
Thanks for the coverage, Pat. Now that we’re at the end, I’d love to expound on some other aspects of our “nearly legitimate” campaign:
– As noted, we did fairly well on fundraising, ultimately outraising our opponent. I’m most proud that we raised money from 51 individual donors. Only $325 of our opponent’s funds came from individuals, whereas 93% came from just eight PACs and party committees.
– While we didn’t quite hit the 3,500 mark, as we did in 2018, we knocked our 3,000th door on Halloween.
– We again placed beautiful, high-contrast yellow highway signs all over the district.
– We attended almost* every parade, fair and big public event from April until now. I realize it’s a “part-time” job, but I would have expected to see my opponent, a sitting State Representative, at a few of them at least. (*I’m still feeling sad that we missed out on the annual Oral Pig Roast, but my wife and I were both suffering from sore throats and lethargy, so we made the decision to skip. We didn’t want to potentially bring COVID to the good people of Oral, Buffalo Gap and Fairburn. It was just allergies, but I think we made the right call.)
– I don’t know if this counts as “capitalizing” on my opponent’s inability to play nicely with her own party, but we certainly did our best to reach out to Republicans who do not believe their current Representative would make a very good Senator. In addition to attending local Democrat rallies, we attended both the Pennington and Custer Lincoln Day Dinners. We even purchased a large full-color ad in the Custer program. (Our opponent didn’t bother to buy an ad, even in an election year.)
– Right after the D35 “endorsement-gate” broke, our postcard to GOP households hit mailboxes. I realize most Republican voters want to be good team players this year, but I think a lot of them remember Ronald Reagan’s 80/20 doctrine that someone who is 80% ally is not a 20% traitor, especially in light of a “teammate” who spends the first three quarters of the game beating up on her fellow players only to expect their loyalty in the fourth.
Anyway, like I said, thank you for the coverage.