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Health Care Politics in South Dakota

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

A new poll finds that health care is the most important deciding issue for South Dakotans trying to pick their next Senator. Republicans think that means crying wolf about the Affordable Care Act.

Mike Rounds is cluttering up everyone’s evening news with his mendacious ad claiming the Affordable Care Act makes him lose sleep. Rounds flat out lies, telling folks that the ACA is cutting Medicare and reducing benefits for seniors like his dear old dad, who, given his long-time service as a lobbyist for the oil industry and the fact that his son is the richest Republican in the U.S. Senate race, is probably one of the last people in South Dakota who needs to worry about paying his medical bills. For the record, the ACA hasn’t reduced care for Don Rounds or any other senior citizen; the cuts Rounds says he opposes are replicated by the Republican Paul Ryan budget.

Rounds, like everyone else on the Republican ticket, vows to repeal the ACA. Rounds et al. consistently call the ACA”ObamaCare,” which shows that for them, repealing the ACA is more about burning that man in the White House in effigy than about crafting good policy.

Call it what you will, the ACA is working. 17.3 to 27.7 million Americans have some sort of coverage thanks to provisions of the ACA. And consider this comparison of what happens when you implement the ACA with what happens when you don’t: In states that have expanded Medicaid under the ACA, hospitals are seeing a lower percentage of uninsured patients. In states like South Dakota that have rejected the ACA-Medicaid expansion, hospitals are seeing a higher percentage of uninsured patients. More uninsured patients mean more uncompensated care and more of what former Republican State Senator Stan Adelstein calls a hidden tax on the rest of us. In other words, everything else being equal, things are better with the ACA than without.

And Mike Rounds says, “Do without.” As former SDGOP boss Joel Rosenthal writes, Rounds and his false-fear-mongering GOP compadres aren’t offering any real policy alternatives to the ACA. Independent Larry Pressler is talking about lowering costs through health cooperatives. Democrat Rick Weiland is talking about making Medicare (which everyone loves, including Rounds) a public option, available to anyone who wants to buy in. Both Pressler and Weiland acknowledge that the ACA is imperfect. They respond not by making Barack Obama a bogeyman but by talking about ways to solve problems and make health care work better.

That same poll showing South Dakotans’ strong concern about health care also shows Rounds winning 44 percent of the vote, Weiland 30 percent, and Pressler 17 percent. That’s a pretty even split between fear mongering and problem-solving. Unfortunately, the two problem-solvers are splitting the practical vote, allowing fear and fecklessness to win the day. Pressler and Weiland will both need to work on pulling voters out of Camp Fear and into Camp Fix-It. Folks hoping for more progress on health care policy should wish Weiland and Pressler well.

Editor’s Note: Cory Heidelberger is our political columnist from the left. For a conservative perspective on politics, please look for columns by Dr. Ken Blanchard on this site.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and has taught math, English, speech, and French at high schools East and West River.

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Openly Dirty Tricks

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

Hey, South Dakota Democrats! Let’s make trouble: let’s nominate Gordon Howie to run for U.S. Senate.

Former Republican legislator Gordon Howie announced this month that he is running for U.S. Senate as an Independent. The Rapid City conservative says he wants to ensure that voters have a conservative on the ballot. Democrat Rick Weiland and apostate Republican turned Indy Larry Pressler clearly do not fit Howie’s arch-conservative mold; Howie and some other conservatives contend that pragmatic GOP front-runner Mike Rounds doesn’t, either.

Howie’s bid might suggest a lack of confidence in his friend Rep. Stace Nelson’s ability to carry the Ted Cruz-y/Rand Paul-y conservative banner to victory in the primary. But Howie just co-hosted a fundraiser for Nelson and swears that he will withdraw from the race if Nelson beats Rounds in June. Howie seems to be engaged in some pragmatism of his own, offering conservatives a Plan B, just in case Nelson’s message can’t muscle past Rounds’s millions.

The only reason I like Howie’s Plan B is that it helps Rick Weiland. It boxes Rounds in: he can’t attack Nelson too hard in the primary, because that would alienate Nelson’s hard-right supporters, who could (as Kevin Woster notes) happily hand their votes to Howie in November. That increases the chances that Nelson can stage an upset in the primary, and Weiland can beat the cash-poor Nelson more easily than he can beat the Nine Million Dollar Man.

Democrats should want Gordon Howie on the ballot. Democrats can sign to put Howie on the ballot (any registered voter of any party can sign a petition for an Independent candidate). But do Democrats dare sign for a candidate who threatens religious freedom, opposes women’s rights, and tramples on the U.S. Constitution? Can one in good conscience sign a petition for a candidate one would never want to win?

Fortunately, Gordon Howie won’t win. His tax-dodging, illegal mountain-lion killing, and general political ineffectiveness (see his fourth-place finish in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary) will keep him from winning statewide office. Democrats outnumber Howie supporters; he will only win enough votes to split a possible Rounds majority with Pressler and increase the chances of a Weiland victory by plurality.

At that point, Democrats can look at placing Howie on the ballot not as a risk to the Republic but as a tactical move to help their candidate win.

So here’s the deal, Democrats: if that calculus and your conscience square, and if you didn’t sign for Weiland (you can’t sign two!), go find a Howie supporter by Tuesday, April 29 (they’ll have clipboards and Agenda 21 buttons) and sign Howie’s petition.

But then you have to do penance: you have to promise you will send Weiland nine bucks. You will vote for him in November. You will bring a friend and tell 10 others to vote for him in November.

Gordon Howie wants to run against Rick Weiland. Let’s help him run … for Rick Weiland.

Editor’s Note: Cory Heidelberger is our political columnist from the left. For a right-wing perspective on politics, please look for columns by Dr. Ken Blanchard on this site.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and has taught math, English, speech, and French at high schools East and West River.

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Money Talks

By Ken Blanchard

Samuel Johnson famously said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. That would be a lot more help without the word”foolish.” When is consistency foolish and when is inconsistency wise? It is hard to be consistent because sometimes we like certain ideas and other times they become inconvenient. Occasionally it happens in the same sentence, as when someone says that you shouldn’t impose your values on others or declares solemnly that there are no absolutes. The first fellow is at that very moment imposing his values on others and the second is declaring an absolute truth.

More often it is a matter of applying the same principle in one case and denying it in another case. When the United States Supreme Court recently struck down aggregate limits on political donations, the chattering class was almost universally appalled. The court had ruled that such limits violate the First Amendment freedom of speech, but is spending speech? With a few notable exceptions (Michael Kinsley for one) the left answered with a bombastic”no!”

It is true that money isn’t speech in the same sense as opening one’s mouth isn’t speech. However, duct taping someone’s lips together is an effective curb on speech and limiting one’s power to spend can be an effective limit on the expression of ideas. If you say that a newspaper is free to print whatever opinions its editors choose so long as they don’t buy any paper or ink, you are no friend to the freedom of the press.

In fact the folks who are strenuously denying that money is speech know very well that it is. If you don’t believe me, ask Brendan Eich. He now has some time on his hands. Eich was, very briefly, the CEO of a company he co-founded. Then he was forced to step down. Six years ago he donated $1,000 to the campaign for Proposition 8 in California. Prop 8 amended the state constitution to say,”only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” That was the sin that cost him his job.

Now I pause here to note that I am in favor of legalizing same sex marriage. I would not have contributed to Prop 8 or voted for it, had I voted in that state where once I lived. I also believe in freedom of speech and thought, and it seems to me that we live in dangerous times when a man can lose his job for taking sides on a ballot proposition.

What is important here, however, is that Eich took a position that was shared by Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Senator Tim Johnson. President Clinton, after all, signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which did on the Federal level what Prop 8 did in one state. Yet none of the latter have suffered much for their positions. I doubt very much that those who opposed Mr. Eich for CEO will fail to vote for Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee in 2016.

And why is that? It is because no one is fooled. Bill and Hillary and Barack and Tim didn’t really believe that same sex marriage was wrong. They took a position that they didn’t really believe in for reasons of political expediency. Mr. Eich, by contrast, could have had no ulterior motive. He suffered because his donation was a genuine expression of his beliefs.

That would be the point. Brendan Eich’s cool grand was obviously political speech. Instead of standing up on a soapbox or writing and printing his two cents worth, he donated to an organization that represented him on this issue. Eich has been defended by those who oppose gay marriage. He has also been defended by those on the left and the right who believe in free speech. No one, I think, has risen to defend him on the grounds that his contribution wasn’t speech at all.

If you really believed that money isn’t speech you would have to believe that someone’s political contributions are politically irrelevant. No one really believes that. To deny, then, that money is speech is foolish inconsistency. That almost means that the denier is a fool.

Editor’s Note: Ken Blanchard is our political columnist from the right. For a left-wing perspective on politics, please look for columns by Cory Heidelberger every other Wednesday on this site.

Dr. Ken Blanchard is a professor of Political Science at Northern State University and writes for the Aberdeen American News and the blog South Dakota Politics.

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A Tale of Two Campaigns

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

I will eat my hat and yours if South Dakota’s U.S. Senate race becomes a battle between Rick Weiland and Annette Bosworth. Weiland’s path to the Democratic nomination appears to face no obstacles other than his gathering the requisite petition signatures. Bosworth’s only route to victory in the crowded GOP primary depends on Mike Rounds getting indicted over EB-5 and her not getting indicted for raffle fraud.

But Bosworth and Weiland offer an instructive study in opposing campaign strategies. Both candidates are mixing different traditional campaign strategies with new social media strategies. But they are pursuing very different courses in trying to reach and build a South Dakota base.

Weiland is taking his message straight to South Dakotans. Since July, Weiland has been touring the entire state, vowing to visit every town in South Dakota … twice. Just today (March 5) Weiland launched an eight-day, 57-town tour with morning stops in Platte, Dallas and Wood. He’s doing a town hall in Martin, then looping through the Black Hills and all of West River.

Weiland’s campaign team regularly posts notes and photos of his peripatetics online. Weiland is taking advantage of social media to document his travels and engage his supporters. Jumping on the suggestion of a Bowdle backer, Weiland crowdsourced (one of those fancy new Web words, meaning getting a bunch of people to do stuff for you) a video montage of regular folks all over the state saying “I met Rick!” The video is hokey, homey, grassroots fun. In a minute and change, this social media clip captures both the techno-with-it-ness a modern campaign needs and the “I am South Dakota — all of South Dakota!” message a candidate must project to win in this state.

Annette Bosworth started her campaign with a similar but “exploratory” tour of the state in June. Since officially entering the race, she seems to have scaled back her travels. Bosworth has made a few forums and other public events (most recently, she was spotted seeking signatures at the Sioux Falls Sportsmen’s Show). But Bosworth has spent less time working the cafes and front porches and more time working the Web. Her social media accounts offer an endless barrage of conservative hot-button blurbs targeting a nationwide audience for online “Likes,” contact info and donations.

Bosworth is mining that nationwide market for support with old-fashioned direct mail. Working with the well-known Washington direct-mail firm Base Connect, Bosworth has engaged in a nationwide mailing campaign that uses a massive GOP mailing list and arguably predatory tactics to raise money. Bosworth’s strategy earned her an impressive $315,314 in the fourth quarter of 2013, more than Rick Weiland, Larry Pressler, and every other Senate candidate besides Mike Rounds combined. Most of that money came from out of state, from folks who won’t be around to sign a petition or vote for her. Bosworth’s strategy cost her serious overhead: 81 percent of that Q4 take is already obliged to debts she owes to Base Connect and the folks sending her team’s beg letters and doing other work for the campaign.

Bosworth is betting on big spending to distinguish herself from the primary crowd. Weiland is happy to take your money, but he’s more likely to ask you for that money face to face, here in South Dakota.

Bosworth thinks she can buy your vote; Weiland is trying to earn it. We’ll see whose strategy South Dakotans buy.

Editor’s Note: Cory Heidelberger is our political columnist from the left. For a right-wing perspective on politics, please look for columns by Dr. Ken Blanchard on this site.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and has taught math, English, speech, and French at high schools East and West River.