I received new information today that the SD Democratic Party, or at least one of their operatives, supposedly, was helping De Knudson to raise money for her campaign. I only have two sources, so I’m not going to say whether this is true or not, just speculation at this point, BUT;
1) It would explain why a young Democrat like Jesse Vavreck was asked to step out of the race.
2) It would also explain why Knudson was asked to speak at a Democratic forum and not Staggers.
3) I also found it a bit odd that so many loyal Dems I talked to supported De.
This should come as no surprise, Dave and De Knudson were Democrats for years, but like Bob Litz, they realized if you want to move up that political latter you have to register Republican, except it didn’t work for Dave or De. At least their son is smart enough to stick with the Democratic label running for the State Legislature, even though I think Manny Steele is going to cream him.
I find it a bit humorous, that even when the SD Dems put all of their resources behind a Republican they even lose, in fact I find it completely, side-splitting hilarious. It wasn’t like Kermit beat De by a couple of votes, he handily beat her and did it with a grassroots campaign that spent 20% of what she did.
For the record, I never thought I would support a conservative candidate like Staggers, but I like his record on fiscal responsibility and transparency in government, something the faux Republican Knudson never has had a record on.
I also find it a little disappointing that the Democrats wanted Kermit to lose so bad, they had to back a Republican. Who says the two parties can’t work together? Except this time the result was quite disastrous, and quite embarrassing.
If this all really went down, as I have heard it did, I hope the Dems learned a lesson from it. Support your own next time, you know, like Jesse Vavreck.
(PS – I also heard they tried to help other candidates that were running against Republicans in the council race.)
There no longer is a Democratic Party in South Dakota nor a Republican party in South Dakota. You have a choice between the Janklow/Daschle/Johnson coalition and its lieutenants or the Roger Hunt Pro-life contin-gency.
When you begin to think in those terms, the current political calculus in Sioux Falls and South Dakota begins to make political sense. I am not defending this reality, I am just claiming it exists.
This reality is very unfortunate because the worker, the
struggling family, the student, or the elderly person on
a fixed income are the real losers.
As long as the political leaders in this state continued to
be co-opted a long these political lines a real debate and
offense for economic justice will never happen.
It is time Democrats in South Dakota began to challenge the “wine and cheese crowd” within their party and demand more, and call them out on their appeasing approach towards the economic elite in this state.
I agree 100%. If what I said above is true, I can’t believe fellow democrats stand for it.
I think that the lines of Republican/Democrat get blurred when talking about local politics. The party affiliations don’t really make anything move until you get to statewide or national politics. And in local Politics I’ve seen “conservatives” do liberal things and vice versa. At the local level it seems to be more about pragmatism and problem solving than t
(oops continued) always towing a party line. Along with that I’ve learned that what a Republican and what a Democrat “are” varies by state. The philosophies are so different wherever you go. A Republican in Minnesota (a generally liberal state, sometimes even the Republicans!) could be considered a Democrat in a place like SD. And when I lived in Alabama again both parties shifted very conservative. One party wanted to govern from the bible, one didn’t, that seemed to be the only significant difference.
Oh, I agree, I don’t believe in ‘towing the party line’ and that is why I am a registered Indy. It would be one thing if an Indy was raising money for Knudson, it is entirely something different when an ’employee’ of the SD Democratic party is doing it. And they say I am a hypocrite. I hope my speculation is not true. I would love for the party to issue me a statement saying it didn’t happen. But, hence, I am still waiting.
Hit the nail on the head, Concerned. Well said.
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