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Bruce continues his media tour on KELO AM;
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — Democratic activist Bruce Danielson and Republican activist Paul Erickson–who is now tangled in a drama with accused Russian spy Maria Butina–shared a love of politics and the Farber Center at the University of South Dakota.
Danielson, who is frequently involved in civic issues in Sioux Falls, says he’s known Erickson, a Sioux Falls businessman, since the late 1970s through events with the late political science icon, Dr. W.O. Farber.
Even back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Danielson says Erickson was a schmoozer.
“Paul was one of those people who always tried to stay connected with people of all different sorts and types,” Danielson said. “He was always trying to get hooked into you somehow so he could always come back and talk to you again. He always wanted to be a mover and a shaker.”
Danielson never talked about Russia with Erickson or about Erickson’s former girlfriend, the federally indicted Butina.
“He’s always been a very interesting character,” Danielson said. “I just found that as time went on, it was better to just keep things on a real level field. I’ve always kind of steered clear of political activists like him.”
But the two did share an appreciation for both politics and Farber.
“We met down at Dr. Farber’s house in Vermillion,” Danielson said. “Dr. Farber was the political science guru based out of USD.”
Danielson said he knew Erickson had worked to try to defeat South Dakota Democratic U.S. Senators Tim Johnson in 2002 and Tom Daschle in 2004.
Thus, he said he avoided talking politics with Erickson because “no matter where I was at, he was going to have an opposite direction.”
Erickson formed an LLC with Butina in June. National media outlets suspect Erickson as “U.S. Person 1” in the indictment against Butina. The federal indictment claims that Butina utilized her personal relationship with Erickson to use his connections to infiltrate Republican and conservative groups.