It will probably make Thune’s day, but really it is not a compliment He has done nothing to make himself stand out in the crowd of repug wannabees. They don’t even vote for them at their own repug conventions;
Offering an earnest assessment of the 2012 landscape, DNC Executive Director Jennifer O’Malley Dillon acknowledged on Friday that among a field of generally flawed (in one way or another) Republican presidential candidates, there is one who genuinely scares her.
“This is personal but John Thune is somebody that I am worried about. I’ve worked in South Dakota with Tom Daschle,” she said. “[Thune] just a guy who’s just doing his work… who not everyone is following.”
O’Malley Dillon didn’t elaborate much further. But her take on Thune, while broadly shared both in Republican and Democratic circles, was a bit more rare and candid than DNC officials generally make. And it would be curious to see what the chatter of Thune as the dark horse of the Republican field does for both his standing within the party and his own internal deliberations about his political future.
Speaking on a panel at Netroots Nation about the current electoral landscape, O’Malley Dillon addressed issues more pressing to the 2010 elections than the next presidential cycle. But in addition to her comments on Thune, she did acknowledge that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush stands out from the rest of the GOP field for his nuanced position on immigration reform — a policy platform that could win him kudos from Hispanic voters.