I went out and voted earlier this week.
Who did I cast my ballot for? I voted to give Governor Larry Rhoden a full term of office, of course. It was a pretty easy vote too.
Larry wasn’t my first choice in the original race. I was a Dusty person, as I liked his position on jobs and development, and I believe elections are about the future. But I bore no ill will towards Larry. I’ve been acquainted with him for years, since his time in the State Legislature, and Larry is just plain-off a good guy.
And again – it’s an easy vote. You know what you’re going to get, as Larry fulfills all of the elements of the critical “know-like-trust” test for candidates. In a political race, you have to meet three tests. Voters won’t vote for you if they don’t know you. They vote for the person they know. If they know them both, then they vote for the one they like. If they like them both equally – they will ultimately go with the person they trust.
If Larry says he’s doing something, or lays out a position, I can trust Larry. Larry Rhoden is a trustworthy guy.
The challenge, and the problem with Toby Doeden, is that he really doesn’t pass that “know-like-trust” very well.
What we know of Toby is from commercials. They’ve done him well, but I don’t believe I know him. The jury is out on the like part, for sure. And I have no ability to trust him, because I have no idea – no track record – on what he would do if he wins. I think there’s far too much that’s up in the air, and a lot of his proposals have less substance than smoke. I CAN’T TRUST I’M GOING TO GET WHAT I’M BEING SOLD in the commercials.
What are the problems I see? Here’s two of the things weighing most heavily:
- Who on earth is Doeden going to choose as his Lt. Gov, and/or populate his administration with? Because right now, all I see is a circus surrounding Toby Doeden, and I don’t want to turn State Government into a clown car. We don’t know what we don’t know at this point. We might very likely have the awful Taffy Howard as Lt. Governor. Or, we could have California Carley. Who knows? Phil Jensen? This is not a stable of people that would want a heartbeat away from the Governor’s chair. Maybe Steve Haugaard might be in line, with all the lip service he’s giving Toby on Facebook.
Doeden has surrounded himself with sycophants and a number of people who are not trustworthy to watch a person’s dog much less entrust with a government. This does not give me a lot of confidence in a potential Doeden administration. There are too many unknowns. So many so, that even if he did get through the primary, he’d need to show much more of the hand he’s holding before I’d even think about voting for him in the fall.It’s that bad.
- Does Toby Doeden actually have a plan? Because all I’m hearing are slogans that he keeps retreating from. For example, from South Dakota Searchlight, Toby’s plan for property taxes.. or what they were depending on the day..
A Doeden campaign postcard mailed earlier this year carried the heading “eliminate property taxes,” without any language limiting the pledge to homeowners. The text under the heading was also devoid of qualifying language: “South Dakota residents are getting crushed under the weight of property taxes. Toby Doeden will phase out property taxes once and for all.”
and yet, the slogans/narrative changes as needed depending on who is asking the questions..
Doeden’s campaign spokesperson Matt Hurley said this week that Doeden’s plan has never applied to any classes of property beyond owner-occupied homes. They produce about $815 million in local tax revenue. Eliminating property taxes for homeowners — and nobody else — has “always been the plan,” Hurley said.
Let’t not forget Toby’s rhetoric on “external revenue,” and how he was going to go after trusts. Or not:
Doeden also mentioned charging a “small fee like every other state does” in an interview with South Dakota Searchlight earlier this year. No specific fees were given. Following the SD Searchlight interview, the idea of “taxing trusts,” though Doeden only ever mentioned imposing “fees,” drew criticism from some. That included an opinion piece on The Dakota Scout, series of commentary on the South Dakota Standard and on the conservative blog site Dakota War College.
This stands in stark contrast to remarks made by Doeden on the Dakota Town Hall podcast last week. When asked if he’s planning to create a luxury tax or tax on trusts, Doeden called bringing in big banks and trusts “the best thing that happened” to South Dakota. He responded to Brad Jurgensen saying he thought Doeden wanted to tax trusts, adding “the trust thing is fake.”
Are you filled with confidence? I’m not.
I could go on and on and on.. and I have for far too many months, as I’ve broken the stories on Toby never voting in a Republican primary (before 2024), and taking over a million dollars of free COVID money from the Gov’t which he never seems to want to talk about.
But the bottom line is that for well over a year now, we’ve been seeing the previews of what a Doeden administration would look like. In story after story, anecdote after anecdote, when you read stories like this from Dakota News Now in 2022:
Ashley Washagesic, a single mother from Aberdeen, saw her rent go up by 48% this year.
Washagesic began renting a home on north Lloyd Street in May of 2020. She paid $775 for the two-bedroom house each month. Washagesic shared the home with her two daughters.
In August, Plaza Rentals bought the property and increased Washagesic’s rent to $1,150 a month. She accepted that she would have to pay another $375 a month, but she just wanted to know why.
and..
Dakota News Now reached out to Plaza Rentals for a statement. When asked if inflation of the housing market and other consumer goods had to do with the rent increase, Plaza Rentals owner Toby Doeden gave the following statement:
“The overwhelming majority of inflation in Aberdeen, like the rest of the Country, was caused by President Biden and his administration’s failed policies. This one particular example has absolutely nothing to do with inflation and Dakota News Now is well aware of this fact. We paid market value for the house and because of that were forced to adjust the rent to market value.
..You’re left scratching your head wondering “what on earth did Toby just say?” Because it sounds like he was just pulling gobbeldygook out of his rear-end to deflect criticism and blame so none of it landed on him.
It’s much like his campaign – slogans and campaign ideas that crumble to dust when they start hitting the light of day.
All I get is the impression that these things we’ve seen over the intervening months and years are just previews of what we would get with a Doeden administration. And as far as I’m concerned, all the previews are awful. And they don’t give me the impression that I want to see this movie playing in our State Capitol anytime soon.
Get out and vote early, or vote on Tuesday, but just go vote.