Sioux Falls Mayoral Candidate ‘Diamond’ Jim Entenman only has one true talent; Blowing Smoke

Even I was a little captivated listening to Jim in his interview with Patrick Lalley yesterday (2nd Hour).

Than I realized he has been a salesman his whole life, and it came to me, ‘Tell the client what they want to hear’.

Jim has had a successful career running a monopoly Harley-Davidson dealership in Sioux Falls for decades, he’s done well for himself. When you own a monopoly your product sells itself. If you wanted to buy a new Harley locally, he was the guy you went to.

Jim has brought those sales skills to Carnegie as a city councilor, he sold the public on an Events Center and a BID Tax. I will say this, I agree with the BID tax, I don’t agree that the mayor wanted to pilfer it for his tennis center.

Jim showed his skills once again on Lalley’s show selling himself to the public and basically giving the answers to the questions he knows the listeners wanted to hear. Huether was famous for this on the campaign trail, famously telling some voters he was a Republican (when he was asked if he was a Republican by a Republican).

The smoke was sure pouring out of Lalley’s studio yesterday. Good thing Stehly was on first and got out of there before the fire was stoked.

Jim started out by saying he wants to serve 8 years. I find this hard to swallow for a few reasons. First, there has been a strong rumor circulating he is a 4 year placeholder for Huether to run in 4 years. But even if that may or may not be true, Jim couldn’t even serve a second term on the council (in which he spent a month each year in Mexico). If he can’t even handle more than 4 years on a part time council, what makes you think he is an 8 year mayor? I don’t believe it for one second. I don’t even think he wants the job, that was evident from his lack luster announcement press conference and hiring someone to run his FB page. I don’t take issue with having a campaign manager helping you out, but if you can’t even post on your own FB page, you have many more issues that I can’t even go into here.

Jim also believes the Events Center has boosted sales tax revenue in our community. While I will state the obvious that we have gleaned maybe a couple million a year in beverage and ticket sales taxes, the EC certainly isn’t the cash cow it was promised to be. Jim’s justification that this was true was the fact the state was behind from last year on sales tax collection yet the city was flat, and since we haven’t been behind like the state that means it is helping. Jim must have really long arms because he really had to pull that one from the deep crevices of his ass.

Jim also changed his tune about the EC’s secret settlement now saying he “Would not have handled it that way.” Yet just a few short weeks ago he was defending the mayor and the administration. He must have realized it was a very lonely place to be when you were the only mayoral candidate out of 8 to support the mayor on something the Supreme Court said was illegal.

I don’t think Jim’s interview style will change much over next few months, he has a bill of goods to sell, and he’s gonna hard sell it to the end. Don’t get to enamored with all the chrome and loud pipes. Just like the bikes he used to sell, all show and no go.

SIDE NOTE: I also found out who is assisting Mr. Entenman on his campaign, and I had to chuckle. This campaigner also helped Huether in his last mayoral campaign, and that was about their last big win. They recently lost in a big judgeship run and last November assisted numerous Democrats in legislative campaigns in which I believe every single one lost. In fact their assistance was so disastrous I think many in the Democratic party have blacklisted them from helping with any further campaigns. I tried to warn a couple of the candidates, but I guess they learned the hard way.

While I am not going to endorse any mayoral candidate until the runoff (and maybe not even than) There are two candidates I would NEVER vote for, TenHaken and Entenman.