Tag: primary election

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Jonesing For Indies

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

The non-race for attorney general shows why South Dakota should reform its nomination process to make it easier for Independents to run for office.

At its convention in Rapid City on June 21, the South Dakota Republican Party nominated Attorney General Marty Jackley to run for a second term. The following weekend, much to my chagrin, the South Dakota Democratic Party failed to nominate a challenger, leaving Jackley unopposed.

Jackley may yet face a challenger on the ballot: Republican Chad Haber, husband of former U.S. Senate candidate Annette Bosworth, announced Tuesday, July 8, that he wants to buck his party and run for attorney general. Among Haber’s many problems is the near impossibility of getting on the ballot. Three party conventions are done. The Libertarians only have until Friday to schedule a date to legally nominate anyone. And Independents had to file by April 29.

The last thing I want is Chad Haber as attorney general. But I do want Independents to have fairer access to the ballot. Consider the disadvantages that state law, written by Republicans and Democrats, unfairly imposes on non-party people:

  • This year, Independents running for House, Senate, or Governor had to collect 3,171 signatures. Republicans running for those offices only needed 1,955 signatures; Democrats, 1,221.
  • Party candidates for attorney general, secretary of state, and other second-tier statewide offices don’t need any signatures; they just need to show up at their convention, give out buffalo wings and ice cream, and win the convention vote. With no party to convene and nominate them, Independents aspiring to become attorney general or secretary of state must gather the same 3,171 signatures as Senate candidates.
  • Independents get a slight advantage in races for Senate, House, Governor and Legislature: an extra month to gather signatures. But Indies for attorney general, secretary of state, public utilities commissioner, etc., have no such luck. Parties nominate their choices for those offices at the summer conventions, two or three months after the Indy filing deadline. This year, a prudent Indy who wanted to challenge Jackley but didn’t want to stand in the way of a qualified Democratic candidate couldn’t wait for the Democratic convention to see if anyone good entered the race.

We can fix these disadvantages with a few statutory changes:

  • Establish a uniform filing deadline for all Independent candidates for statewide and legislative offices: the last Tuesday in July.
  • Require political parties to submit their convention nominees by the last Tuesday in June.
  • Reduce the Independent nominating signature requirement to the either the lower or the average of the major party signature requirements.
  • For offices like attorney general, for which partisan candidates are nominated by convention rather than petition, set the Independent nominating signature requirement equal to the number of voting delegates attending the largest party convention in the state.

Independents accept the disadvantage of running for office without an ongoing party apparatus. They should not face additional unfair disadvantages imposed on them by partisan lawmakers. We can’t fix the system in time to give Jackley the challenge he deserves, but we can open up the ballot and allow Independents easier access in future elections.

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.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Primary Lessons

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

South Dakota Democrats had the least to vote on in last week’s primary, but they had the most interesting race. Most folks knew that incumbent Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Nine-Million-Dollar Man Mike Rounds would have a relatively easy time securing the Republican nominations for Governor and U.S. Senator, respectively. But in the Democratic tussle for the gubernatorial nomination, it was anyone’s guess who would win, Rep. Susan Wismer from Britton or Joe Lowe from Piedmont. Would Wismer’s direct mail trump Lowe’s TV and newspaper ads? Would Wismer be able to make up for campaign time she lost due to her job preparing taxes for her Britton neighbors? Would Wismer’s accountantly reserve withstand Lowe’s direct, personable and passionate style?

Wismer appears to have stamped a yes on all three questions with her 11-point victory over Lowe last Tuesday. Then again, all three of those points may have given Lowe genuine advantages; they may simply not have been enough to overcome Wismer’s biggest advantage: her status as a Democratic Party veteran, able to activate a built-in network of donors, volunteers and influential get-out-the-vote callers.

Lowe voters (I know whereof I speak; I am one!) had a sense that Lowe represented more of a break from the status quo, both from a South Dakota Democratic Party whose caution hasn’t posted many wins in the last two elections and from a Republican regime that Lowe says has bred a”culture of corruption.” Our Lowe-as-change-agent has two strong ironies. If we are concerned about a one-party good-old-boys’ club, no one disrupts that paradigm more iconically than only the second woman ever nominated for South Dakota governor. (The first: Alice Daly, Nonpartisan League, 1922.) And Lowe himself worked for three of the Republican administrations as state fire chief. Some would say he benefited from the corrupt regime he would now overturn; Lowe would say he simply had a front-row seat to witness that corruption every day during over a decade of honorable service to South Dakota. And hey — Democrats nominated a former Republican state senator for governor and a guy who was registered Republican until the week of the convention for his lieutenant in 2010, so who are we Dems to hold a guy’s past Republican associations against him?

If Lowe did represent change, his 11-point primary loss reminds us that Democrats must work hard to upset the established order in their own party. And even if we can unite behind Wismer as our change agent, the broader primary results remind us that changing South Dakota will be even harder. 12,283 Democrats and Independents came out to vote for Lowe in a competitive race. 15,311 voted for Wismer. 60,017 Republicans voted for Dennis Daugaard in an in-the-bag primary. Put Lowe and Wismer together (Wowe! I mean, Whoa!), and last Tuesday, Daugaard still would have beaten them. Twice. (Maybe I mean Woe!)

Electing a Democrat of any flavor, Wismer or Lowe, to the governor’s office would represent a major change. But electing a Democrat statewide in South Dakota will require an enthusiasm for change that is found in neither the Democratic or Republican primary results.

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.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

What is a Kneip?

By John Andrews

Today South Dakotans vote in primary elections for governor and U.S. Senate. Susan Wismer, of Britton, and Joe Lowe, of Rapid City, are seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. In November, one of them will try to become the first Democratic governor of South Dakota since Richard Kneip served from 1971 to 1978.

When I was studying South Dakota history at the University of South Dakota, I wrote my master’s thesis on Kneip and state politics during the 1970s. That decade under Kneip’s leadership was one of the most important in state history. Gov. Kneip oversaw the complete reorganization of the executive branch, helped create the state’s four-year medical school in Vermillion and dealt with controversies and tragedies such as Wounded Knee, the Rapid City flood and the Oahe Irrigation Project.

Being elected governor is no easy task for Democrats in South Dakota. Since 1889 only three Democrats had served (four if you count Andrew Lee, who won in 1896 as a Fusion candidate, which blended Democrats and Populists) when Kneip announced his plans to run in 1970. Even then, few people might have suspected Kneip, a wholesale dairy equipment dealer from Salem, was cut out to be governor.

He had no political experience at all before 1965, when he won a term in the state senate serving McCook, Hanson and Sanborn counties. His entry into that race came partly because friends told him a Democrat could never get elected in that district. Inspired by John F. Kennedy’s success, Kneip, a fellow Catholic, announced his candidacy and won.

In 1970 Kneip challenged incumbent Gov. Frank Farrar and threw himself completely into the campaign. Because so few people outside his district were familiar with Kneip, his staff created a clever ad campaign that asked,”What is a Kneip?” The answer, of course, was,”the Democratic candidate for governor.” He traveled the state at a breakneck pace, visiting as many Main Street businesses as he could.”I barely have time to smoke a cigarette anymore,” he said two weeks before the election.”I’ve lost 20 pounds since the campaign started.”

Kneip defeated Farrar 55 percent to 45 percent, and began a fairly progressive decade of South Dakota politics. He whittled the state’s executive branch from over 160 departments and boards to 16. He helped transform the University of South Dakota’s two-year medical school into a full, degree-granting four-year institution. In the meantime, kept up with South Dakotans across the state. Ted Muenster, Kneip’s chief of staff, said that sometimes farmers called the governor’s office with questions about a piece of dairy equipment Kneip had sold them, and the governor would talk to them about it.

He also had a fun-loving side. One of Kneip’s more interesting exploits came in 1977 when he participated in Saturday Night Live‘s”Anyone Can Host” contest. The show sought brief statements from people explaining why they should host. The governor’s staff drafted a submission that said,”Being host could be my big breakthrough in show biz. Otherwise, it’s probably back to selling automatic milking machines (wholesale) like before I was Governor.”

The show’s producers got a kick out of it, and in November Kneip was one of five people who appeared on the show. Viewers were invited to vote for their favorite potential host. Kneip liked to say he had never lost an election, but 80-year-old Miskel Spillman from New Orleans prevailed.

Kneip resigned in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter named him the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore. He attempted a brief comeback in 1986, but lost in the Democratic primary. He died in March 1987.

Republicans have won every gubernatorial election since Kneip’s resignation. Can Susan Wismer or Joe Lowe break the streak? Only time will tell.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

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.