Tag: politics

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Remembering the Preacher Politician

By Bernie Hunhoff

You know what we say about preachers’ sons: they like to live life on the edge. George McGovern was born at Avon in 1922, the son of a Methodist pastor. He volunteered for the Army Air Force after Pearl Harbor and flew 35 missions in the plane he called Dakota Queen.

His plane, named for his young bride back home, was hit by enemy fire on a bombing mission in 1944. One engine quit and another caught fire, but he somehow kept it in the air and brought his crew home. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
When the fighting stopped, he could have come home. But he volunteered to stay overseas and fly food into the European communities that he’d been bombing.
“The streets (of Italy) were full of young women selling themselves, not because they were immoral but because that was the only way they could scrape together enough to take care of their children,” he remembered in an interview with South Dakota Magazine in 2001.
Those young women made a lasting impression on the young preacher’s son, who came back to South Dakota and went wild.

He actually tried to revive the two-party system in South Dakota, going town-to-town and door-to-door to organize the Democratic Party. There were but a handful of Democratic lawmakers in Pierre and no statewide officials from the party. The young McGovern spoke to Rotary Clubs and Chambers of Commerce, selling the idea that one-party government was hurting their communities and state.

He won a U.S. House seat in 1956, became a friend of the Kennedy family and lost a bid for Senate in 1960. JFK asked him to head his Food for Peace agency, and he leaped at the opportunity. Two years later he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962, edging Sen. Joe Bottum by less than 600 votes.
The rest is American history. McGovern rose to national stature in 1968 as an early and vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. It was the same year that Dusty Springfield had the hit song, “The Son of a Preacher Man.”
I got to know him in 1974 while working as a legislative aide to U.S. Rep. Frank Denholm in Washington, D.C. McGovern had just lost the presidential race, and was a national figure. His opponent, Richard Nixon, was about to resign from office and if the election had been held that summer it would’ve been a landslide in the other direction.
One of my jobs as the youngest staffer in the office that Watergate summer was to escort people across the Capitol complex to find George McGovern’s office. They were teenagers, farmers, seniors, mayors and lobbyists. He treated everyone the same — with a gracious smile and all the time his staff would allow. After about a dozen such visits, he finally realized that I wasn’t part of the visiting entourage but he still welcomed me just as warmly.
We had occasion to keep in contact through the years. He lost the U.S. Senate seat in 1980 but he stayed involved in South Dakota life. I was a journalist, and became a state legislator in 1993 so our paths continued to cross.

Our last serious conversation happened about two years ago when my daughter, Katie, and I interviewed the aging senator in his Mitchell library. He seemed satisfied with his life, as we looked back. But at age 88, he still had a strong sense of purpose.

He was excited that he could still feed massive numbers of people — far more than he ever imagined when he flew back into Europe with a cargo of food rather than bombs. He was also wild about the idea of educating girls in poor countries. He said it might do more than almost anything else to end poverty and conflict.

He was a preacher’s son — wild with compassion for the disenfranchised and forgotten among us.
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Who Should Pay For Good Public Programs?

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

My 2012 ballot is somewhat humdrum: mark the D’s, vote no on Governor Daugaard’s really bad ideas (Referred Laws 14 and 16), and make sure I affix enough postage. Simple.

Initiated Measure 15 is not so simple. More than 33,000 signatories placed IM 15 on the ballot to ask us to consider increasing our state sales tax from 4% to 5% to boost funding for K-12 education and Medicaid.

Practically, I should find voting for IM 15 easy. I teach. I have a daughter in public school. Passing IM 15 means $91 million more for K-12 education, or about $730 more for each student. With 20 kids in her first-grade class, that’s over $14,000 worth of new books, field trips, art supplies and other practical things that could help my daughter learn more.

Politically, I could find IM 15 useful in challenging some vital South Dakota Republican mythology. I’ve heard Republican legislators fantasize out loud that they have a mandate from the voters not to raise taxes. They claim that they’d like to increase funding for education and other programs but that the voters won’t stand for any tax increases. These lazy statesmen thus justify their own inability and unwillingness to seek new revenue to solve policy problems.

Passing IM 15 at the ballot box would repudiate this self-justifying myth. It would say to Republican legislators, “The voters think education and health care are important enough to spend more money on; why don’t you?”

But one key principle keeps me in doubt on IM 15: we would expand our reliance on a regressive tax. The poorest 40% of wage-earners would pay a touch over 1% of their income to cover this tax increase, while the richest 20% would pay just 0.3% more from their income. South Dakota’s millionaires would pay just 0.1% more out of their hefty pocketbooks. In practical terms, the blue-collar family down the street has to find a way to cut out three days’ worth of meals and other expenses to pay for this tax increase; your CEO neighbor skips one fancy dinner at Minerva’s and turns off the contributions to her hedge fund for an afternoon.

K-12 education and Medicaid are vital public services. Our legislature lacks the political will to fund them properly. But can we justify funding public services by making South Dakota’s tax system even more unfair to lower-income people?

That’s the hardest question South Dakotans face on this year’s ballot.

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 is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.



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Hunting For a Sensible Policy

By Ken Blanchard

Environmental policy conflicts can sometimes be easy to solve when you are looking for a tradeoff between well-defined goals and interests. They can be almost impossible to resolve when impressionism trumps analysis.

Several years ago I spent some time in Yellowstone with a group of professors and students. Our task was to study three environmental issues. One was the conflict between snowmobilers and”quiet park” advocates. The second was the conflict between ranchers and wolves. The third involved the threat of brucellosis, a disease that might possibly be communicated between Yellowstone’s bison and ranch cattle. A week of watching wolves and buffalo, talking to ranchers and listening to lectures, hardly makes me an expert; however, I came away thinking that all three problems were manageable.

By restricting the snowmobiles entering the park to the quieter models, limiting the number of machines admitted and confining them to established roads, a reasonable balance had been struck between those who want to cross silent winter spaces on skis and those who want to roar through such spaces in a train of rockets.

The ranchers I talked to did not like wolves one little bit, but they were largely reconciled to the fact that wolves aren’t going away again. Wolves are everywhere now as a result of an extremely successful reintroduction policy. Ranchers want a little more freedom to kill wolves that are preying on their livestock and maybe they should get it. Apart from that, there is little to fight about.

The brucellosis problem is more difficult but it may be manageable. This disease is a great threat not only to ranchers but to the entire cattle industry in states where it appears. Ranchers fear that Yellowstone’s bison herds might infect their cattle and they want those herds to be better contained. In addition to buffalo, elk also carry the disease. That is a touchier issue as everyone likes elk. Some ranchers we talked to earn extra income guiding parties of hunters. There is evidence that artificial elk feeding grounds, intended to keep elk numbers up over winter, are a major cause of infection among those animals.

There is hope that Brucella abortus can eventually be eliminated from Yellowstone animals. In the meantime, slaughtering bison that leave the park and eliminating elk feed grounds may be both necessary and sufficient.

For a lesson in how not to approach such issues as these, consider the Chicago Tribune’s recent editorial: “The War on Wolves.” The Trib has its fur up over the legal hunting of wolves. The editorial begins with a misanthropic musing on the misbehavior of the human species. It then proceeds to articulate an environmental version of original sin,”How could the feds tolerate the hunting of an ecologically important creature that, by the mid-1900s, was hunted almost to oblivion?”

Apparently the Trib thinks that we should not ask whether hunting limited numbers of wolves is a threat to the recovered wolf population. The editorial never raises that question. Instead we should consider the guilt we bear for our past sins. We shouldn’t hunt wolves now because we were bad to them in the past.

The Trib lumps ranchers who fear wolves preying on their herds with hunters who want a chance to put a wolf head over their dining room tables as a vast alliance bent on the extinction of all things lupine. This is noxious numbskullery. Most ranchers would indeed like to see wolves go away altogether. Hunters by contrast would like to see the population of wolves increase so that their chances of bagging one would go up. Hunters and conservationists are natural allies whenever they are willing to look each other in the eye. That, of course, is the problem.

The Tribune’s editors assure us that”We aren’t anti-hunting.”

No. They are anti-hunter, as is clear from this gem:

The conflict pits people who would enjoy shooting wolves — think Sarah Palin, firing from an aircraft — against what a Montana wolf hunter interviewed on The Sportsman Channel called “a bunch of wingnut screwballs from wherever (telling) us how to manage wildlife.

I am not sure what the Chicago Tribune thinks about ranchers, but its editorial is dripping with loathing for hunters and trappers. It is altogether innocent of the simple question whether the hunting of wolves makes sense as ecological management. That might not be the best way to consider conservation policy.

I don’t hunt but I have no objections, moral or otherwise, to hunting. I am just plain scared of guns. As for wolves, I think they are about as cool as any animal that walks the earth. I spent a marvelous day at Yellowstone watching them through scopes. I chanced to see a pair of them digging for something only a few feet away from my car. I think that the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and elsewhere was a great achievement. I hope that their populations flourish and increase.

If hunting wolves is a threat to wolf populations, then we should not allow it. If it is not such a threat, then we certainly should allow it. Adding hunters to those who want to see more wolves strengthens that constituency. If you want to find a reasonable solution to such conflicts, perhaps reason ought to be your guide. What you think of Sarah Palin might not be so helpful.

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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Gay Rights And Chicken Sandwiches At SDSU

By Cory Allen Heidelberger


I got through the summer mostly avoiding discussion of the kerfuffle over Chick-fil-A and gay rights. Now my alma mater finally dragged me into it.

This summer, Chick-fil-A’s CEO Dan Cathy caused a fuss by saying he doesn’t care much for gay rights. Cathy said his company supports traditional families. His company has given millions of dollars to groups that fight gay rights. In July, Cathy said we risk “God’s judgment on our nation” if we allow homosexuals to marry. He called folks like me who think whom you marry is none of the state’s business “prideful” and “arrogant.”

Some foolish arrogance seeped out of the SDSU Students’ Association Monday night. The Jackrabbits’ student government had two resolutions on its agenda. The first expressed support for the university administration’s decision to invite Chick-fil-A to build a store on campus and declared a desire to increase inclusiveness for all SDSU students. The second criticized Chick-fil-A for its “dishonest” anti-gay activism and reaffirmed the SA’s commitment to addressing LGBT issues on campus.

The SA could have passed both of these resolutions. The student senators could have clapped President Chicoine on the back for improving Jacks’ access to crispy processed chicken. (But really, Jacks: is on-campus dining that confining? For me twenty-two years ago, Medary Commons French toast at dawn, Jacks Place pizza for lunch, and a good whiff of Charlie Schaaf’s chuckwagon stew smoking up Hansen Hall made SDSU a Shangri-La of food diversity. Add McDonalds down the street, and what more could a Lake Herman boy ask for?) Then the Senators could have wagged a finger at CEO Cathy’s anti-gay language and reminded him that he’ll be hawking his sandwiches on a campus committed to equal rights and opportunity for all students.

But no. By distressingly wide margins, the SA approved the sillier resolution cheering SDSU’s decision 23-6, then rejected the more important resolution affirming the SA’s commitment to truth and fairness 9-20.

From what I read of the debate in the SDSU Collegian, it appears the SA believes that homophobes need their help:

Kaytlin Pelton, another co-sponsor from the College of Ag and Biological Sciences, hopes that Chick-fil-A coming to campus would promote the discussion at SDSU about LGBT issues.”What better way to promote diversity than to bring in this company … That would be awesome” [Marcus Traxler, “SA Votes to Support University Decision on Chick-fil-A,” SDSU Collegian, 2012.09.17].

Chick-fil-A three times a day wouldn’t make me feel as queasy as Senator Pelton’s absurd argument. Bringing in a company that funds anti-gay propaganda to do business at SDSU is no better way to promote “diversity” than inviting the Ku Klux Klan to open an office in the Student Union.

We don’t increase “inclusiveness” by cheering exclusiveness. We don’t enhance “diversity” at SDSU or across South Dakota by giving more voice to fundamentalist Christians who think non-heterosexual behavior disqualifies folks from certain basic rights. But the SDSU Students’ Association says inclusiveness and diversity mean defending a wealthy corporate executive and his anti-gay activities instead of standing up for equal rights for and honest dialogue with a genuine persecuted minority among their constituents.

There’s a chicken-and-white-bread joke here somewhere. But the minority isn’t laughing.

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 is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.

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Diversity on the Convention Stage

By Ken Blanchard

A friend recently described a drinking game that his daughter devised. Every time she saw a black person at the Republican National Convention, she would have to take a drink.”She says it’s a way to stay sober all through the night.”

That joke was fair enough when applied to the conventioneers. Republicans attract very few African Americans. They do only a little better at attracting Latinos. You would know that the joke was very unfair if you were watching one of those networks that didn’t cut away whenever a minority speaker took the stage. I watched Mia Love’s excellent speech. Love is the daughter of immigrants from Haiti who, she told us, arrived in the United States with ten dollars between them. Love is mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah. She is the first black woman to be mayor of a Utah city and if she succeeds in beating Democrat Jim Matheson in November she will be the first black woman to represent the Republican Party in Congress.

I listened to Artur Davis, a black moderate who found that there was no future for him in the Democratic Party. He switched to the Republican Party and will likely run for Congress. I listened with delight in large part because his gorgeous Alabama accent made me homesick for the South.

Also on the agenda was Condoleezza Rice, the first African American woman to serve as Secretary of State. Rice was frequently mentioned when political prognosticators were trying to guess who Mitt Romney would pick as his running mate. She seemed to rule out such a role, at least in this election. A lot of Republican ears perked up, however, when she spoke of America as a place where black parents could realistically hope that their daughter would grow up to be President.

If you are inclined to be cynical, you might think that this was all show. You’d be right of course, except for the”all” part. The Republicans certainly intended to send a message by putting blacks, Latinos and a lot of women on their program. Whatever you think of the GOP, you can’t complain that the convention stage did not achieve diversity.

In this case, it is impossible to doubt that the message was genuine. While the Republicans may be uncompetitive among black Americans, black Americans are very competitive among Republicans. All three speakers were enthusiastically welcomed by the crowd. Mia Love is a Tea Party favorite. The same was true of the many Latino speakers. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez brought down the house.

The Republicans were putting on a show, to be sure. That is what conventions are these days. It’s not just a show, however, when the party gives a prominent places to minority political stars at an event that draws tens of millions of television viewers. It’s not just a show when the party invests all its resources in these stars. That is a sign of progress.

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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Pe ‘Sla, Property Tax and Reconciliation

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

The day after I wrote about Lakota efforts to raise enough money to outbid developers for the 2000-acre Pe ‘Sla/Reynolds Prairie, the white owners called off the auction. A week and a half later, the Great Sioux Nation announced it had raised enough earnest money to seal a deal to make this sacred Black Hills site the property of the Great Sioux Nation.

Don’t bang the celebration drum just yet. Cartoonist Marty Two Bulls notes that Custer may be having a big chuckle with Columbus and the conquistadors in Hell:

First we stole the Black Hills. Now to get them back, the Natives have to buy them back. But this is the best part: even if they buy them, they have to pay a yearly tax to keep them.

Buying 2000 acres is a practical investment, with practical costs. Given the sacred nature of the place, it is unlikely the Native purchasers would exploit the land for some money-making purpose. Preserving this prairie oasis in the heart of the Black Hills will cost the tribes money.

“The land is priceless,” says Lakota activist Madonna Thunder Hawk says. “It doesn’t matter how much money the tribes have to put up for Pe’ Sla. We have to have it.” A quick search of the Pennington County property tax database shows that the county taxes paid by current Pe ‘Sla owners Leonard and Margaret Reynolds are around $1.50 per acre on some parcels. The tax bill for the entire 2000 acres might be a few thousand dollars a year. That may not be much, but the taxes still catch the Great Sioux Nation in that dark Custerian joke of deception, theft and ongoing tribute.

So maybe South Dakota should recognize the unique nature of the Lakota claim to this portion of the Black Hills. We can recognize that the Lakota hold Pe ‘Sla as holy as we hold our churches, temples and mosques. We can exempt Pe ‘Sla from taxes, for as long as the Great Sioux Nation owns it and protects it from development.

Taking Pe ‘Sla off the tax rolls would have a minor impact on tribal, county and state finances. It could have a major impact on white-Native reconciliation. Just as the successful acquisition and ongoing possession of Pe ‘Sla may promote cultural renewal and further positive activism among our Native neighbors, South Dakota’s declaration, written into tax law, that “Pe ‘Sla is yours, and it is sacred” could build a little trust and respect and make it easier for whites and Natives to work together on other projects.

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 is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.



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Mind Your Yahs and Y’alls

Vice President Biden’s controversial “y’all” raised a ruckus in Danville, Va. recently. Official White House photo.

By Ken Blanchard

If you are entertained by politics, as I am, Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on giving. Speaking to a largely African-American audience in Danville, Virginia, the Vice President accused Mitt Romney of wanting to unchain Wall Street. He then said:”They gonna put y’all back in chains.”

Now I happen to think that”y’all” is a useful construction. We’d be well advised to adopt it as it would give English a genuine second person plural. It is a slang conjunction of”you all,” which is what a Southerner sometimes says when he wants to make it clear that he is addressing a group and not a single person.

However, when a fellow from Delaware says it to a room full of Virginians, he is asking for trouble. Like most types of slang, it is associated with backward and uneducated folks. Doug Wilder, the first black governor of Virginia, raised another familiar objection to Biden’s remark. By saying”y’all” rather than”we,” Biden was exempting himself and so putting himself a bit above his audience. This is the reason that the phrase”you people” is considered so politically incorrect.

This incident reminded me of the local reaction to the movie Fargo. The characters in that excellent film spoke with an exaggerated regional accent and dialect. Some couldn’t get out seven words without saying”yah” twice. I discussed the film in class once and some of my students were more than a little offended by this. They felt that they were being insulted.

This is unfortunate. While it is certainly good to be able to speak Standard English, regional dialects and accents are rich in charm and information. They can tell you a lot about where people came from and what happened to them after they ended up here. My Uncle Tee loved to tell stories about the speech of German immigrants in Missouri. A friend once directed him to his house in these terms: you take the up hill, the down hill and the corner round.

As the Vice President learned, however, it can be perilous to mimic a style of speech that is not in any sense your own. There is no doubt that his remarks would have been taken as plain evidence of racism had they been spoken by Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. Governor Wilder was suggesting something like that about Mr. Biden. This is unfair. He was only making a fool of himself, which is what most of us do from time to time when we are trying to be clever.

Mr. Biden discovered how difficult it is, under the rules of political correctness, to defend himself. What used to count toward offensive speech, both in etiquette and law, was what your intentions were and whether you violated some well-known rule. Today what counts is whether someone belonging to a specially defined group feels insulted by what you said. This makes it increasingly difficult for us to talk to one another at all.

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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2012 Farm Bill

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

The debate over the 2012 Farm Bill offers the satisfying spectacle of watching Democrats attack Republicans for not acting enough like Democrats, and Republicans responding by trying to act more like Democrats.

Congresswoman Kristi Noem has been promising a strong farm bill. She has promised to use her influence on the House Agriculture Committee and as freshman liaison to the House GOP leadership to get more benefits for South Dakota farmers and ranchers. The House managed to pass stop-gap drought relief for livestock producers before the August recess, but Speaker Boehner has stalled on the overall farm bill, leaving it simmering until fall. The debate will drag on perilously close to the current farm bill’s expiration at the end of September. Every day closer to the November election makes it less likely that Congress will make any tough decisions.

Noem’s Democratic challenger, Matt Varilek, showed up outside a closed-door Noem confab with farm leaders Monday to demand that she take faster action on the farm bill. South Dakota farmers need help, Varilek charges; they can’t wait for political games. Noem insists she’s doing all she can to pass all the government help she can for agriculture.

Read that again: a Democrat says, “We need more government help!” The Republican to whom he says that responds, “I’m getting it to you as quickly as I can!”

Three years ago, we had something called TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. President Bush signed TARP into law. We used TARP to bail out a bunch of the banks that gambled us into the recession. President Obama used TARP to bail out General Motors and Chrysler. Instead of letting those businesses sink or swim on the merits of their own assets and decisions, we said as a national community, “No, no, we can’t let the free market run you out of business. You’re too big to fail. Here’s some cash.”

Isn’t the farm bill an ongoing bailout for agriculture? Rep. Noem says agriculture is a “national security” issue; it is, therefore, too big a deal to fail. We promise farmers that, whether it’s drought or flood or mere fluctuations in consumer preferences, we won’t let conditions beyond their control drive them out of business. We pile food stamps into the farm bill, in part to help hungry people, but also to boost demand for agricultural products. On the farm bill, Republicans like Kristi Noem join Democrats like Matt Varilek in saying, essentially, “The market doesn’t work! Government must act to keep agriculture afloat!”

It’s too bad we can’t get Republicans and Democrats to agree like that more often.

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 is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School.

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Dairy Queen in the Body Politic

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

Today (Thursday, July 26) is Dairy Queen’s Miracle Treat Day. This nationwide event raises money for Children’s Miracle Network, which helps local families cover costs when they have to take their kids to the hospital for serious injuries and illnesses. You buy a Blizzard, and the money goes to CMN. Pretty cool.

The Madison Dairy Queen has led the nation in Miracle Treat Day fundraising every year since 2006. Madison DQ owner DeLon Mork has found the right combination of promotion, hustle, and heart to distinguish his store as a Blizzard powerhouse.

The focus of Miracle Treat Day is helping kids and families in need, not scoring political points. Yet this convergence of business and public service carries some useful political lessons. Let me pull out my left-right poli-goggles and see what Miracle Treat Day at the Madison Dairy Queen says about how we interact in the body politic:

1. Leaning Right: Corporations. I occasionally grumble that big chain-store corporations harm small communities, killing local businesses and reducing opportunities for independent entrepreneurship. Dairy Queen is a big corporation, but its franchise model seems to leave plenty of room for local entrepreneurship. Mork has corporate rules to follow, but he’s been free to develop his own marketing for Miracle Treat Day. DQ bosses have come to Madison to learn from Mork’s success. Mork’s achievements, not just on Miracle Treat Day but in year-round business, have built him a platform from which to act as a community leader. Contra Romney, corporations are not people… but they do help people do some good things.

2. Leaning Left: Cooperation. Miracle Treat Day exists because Dairy Queen and the rest of us recognize that unexpected medical costs are more than pretty much any family can bear on their own. Rugged individualism doesn’t pay most medical bills; cooperative effort does.

3. Leaning Left: Communitarianism. Madison rightly pats Mork on the back for his efforts. Mork consistently responds to such praise by pointing to all the other people who make the Dairy Queen’s success possible. He lauds his staff, who hustle all day to feed a line of people that circles the store and spills back out the door. He thanks a community that turns out in droves to support the cause. Mork might paraphrase President Obama and say of Miracle Treat Day, “I didn’t build that; the community did.” Like Mork, the entire town takes greatest pride in the things we do together. We tout that togetherness, downplaying our selfish interests and emphasizing the good that comes from community effort.

But as anyone in Madison will tell you on Miracle Treat Day, the big debate is not between Left and Right. It’s between Oreo and Choco Cherry Love. Grab a friend from the opposite party, and share a warm fuzzy Blizzard!

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 is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School.



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Thrift Store Debate Defies Political Labels

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

Since I got back to Madison for the summer, I’ve been blog-embroiled in my hometown’s latest controversy: a proposal by a handful of local boosters to build a million-dollar, 18,000-square foot community thrift store.

There are lots of facets to this story, but one that hasn’t come up is political ideology. I know the thrift store steering committee includes at least one Republican and one Democrat. One shop owner who strongly opposes the thrift store put my blog URL on a bright yellow poster in her Main Street window. I have yet to ask her whom she’s voting for in November or whether she considers herself a political Lefty like me. Another business owner opposing the project has frequently declared himself a firm believer in free enterprise, but his econo-fundamentalism didn’t stop him from giving me two hours of his time to talk about his concerns about the thrift store.

Trying to view this local issue through ideological lenses gets confusing. The thrift store proposal arises from leftish concerns that government funding for local poverty assistance programs may dry up. The thrift store organizers say they would donate the store’s profits to help the poor. Asking for taxpayer dollars ($150K from Madison, $150K from Lake County) to subsidize the store seems like it could only come from us lefties. However, privatizing assistance to the poor–moving authority over tax dollars from public agencies to a private non-profit–sets off alarm bells similar to those that ring in my head when I hear conservatives talk about replacing public schools with private options.

The thrift store proposal could win conservative points by emphasizing the free market as a tool for generating assistance for the poor. Yet as an economic development tool (and the organizers make that an auxiliary selling point), the thrift store plan seems to reject a free market solution: it knocks down two functional commercial buildings and a third vacant building on which no daring entrepreneur wants to roll her capitalist dice.

The usefulness of political labels breaks down somewhere between Washington, D.C., and Madison, S.D. I can point to Lake County neighbors who argue bitterly with my defenses of Barack Obama the usurping socialist (no, he’s not!) but who agree with me completely on the boondogglery of the community thrift store. I also know one good Dem whose socialist impulses lead him to support this project.

That’s one reason I like local politics: we have to drop the ideological labels and prefab talking points and get down to the practical questions of how to spend our tax dollars.

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 is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School.