Democratic candidate for U.S. House Rep. Paula Hawks comes to Aberdeen tonight (6 p.m., senior center!) as part of her East River town hall tour to talk to voters. In the midst of her road trip, Rep. Hawks announces three West River town halls next week:
- Spearfish Town Hall – Monday, July 18th, 6–7 p.m. MDT, Grace Balloch Memorial Library, 625 N. 5th Street.
- Custer Town Hall – Tuesday, July 19th, 6–7 p.m. MDT, Re-Treat Room, 21 N. 4th Street.
- Rapid City Town Hall – Wednesday, July 20th, 6–7 p.m. MDT, Rapid City Public Library, 610 Quincy Street
While Rep. Hawks works on reaching out to voters, Rep. Noem’s public schedule remains unknown. Rep. Noem has agreed to appear in a panel discussion with Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds at Dakotafest on August 18, but Dakotafest organizers have indicated no plans to conduct the traditional candidate debates that have taken place at past iterations of the big Mitchell ag show. Noem likely wants to avoid any joint appearance with the far more articulate and informed Hawks, as such a side-by-side comparison would make South Dakotans realize it is time to trade six years of feckless faux-rodeo queenery for a return to competent legislating.
I have no respect for any elected official who will not stand and debate, and I have even less for someone claiming to be a Republican that is unable or unwilling to articulate the conservative cause. Imagine where we would be if Republican Abe Lincoln had not toe’d the mark in the famous debates against proslavery Democrat Stephen Douglas.
Stephen Douglas was not pro-slavery. He was for state’s rights to determine slavery.
Slavery, he believed, must be treated impartially as a question of public policy, although he privately thought it was wrong and hoped it would be eliminated some day. At the same time, he saw in popular sovereignty an extension of local self-government and states’ rights and charged his opposition with seeking a consolidation of power on the national level that would restrict individual liberty and endanger the Union.
I’m sure the three stooges getting together for a genuine lovefest will be revolting. Until voters in this state prove to the state republican party that they have had enough of this crap, Noem or any of the rest of them have nothing to fear.
While my summation was overly simple, yours misses the gist of the debates by a country mile: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3284
Douglas argued that slavery was a dying institution that had reached its natural limits and could not thrive where climate and soil were inhospitable. He asserted that the problem of slavery could best be resolved if it were treated as essentially a local problem.
Pretty much what was said above.
Paula Hawks can do the old debate an empty chair debate. Could be improved with new technology by putting up Noem’s nonsense statements on a screen, etc.
Or, since Dakotafest is promising a public forum, Paula Hawks can attend, stand up in the audience, and ask a question. I’m sure Kristi won’t mind.
Hawks would and will blow Noem out of the water in a debate. She has no principles and if she tried to go radical conservation I think people would see through that.
The last thing this country needs is a conservative agenda. We all know where that led us too with Reagan and Bush. Do we want a rehash of 2008? Don’t think so. Do we want more wars? Don’t think so. Do we want more money going to the top 1%? Don’t think so
@Stace: Dakotafest is hardly comparable to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. A “moderator” asking softball questions doesn’t qualify as a debate.
Politicians of both parties who are ahead in the polls do not want to debate because they set themselves up to lose votes especially if they feel they may lose the debate. It is all about getting re-elected and winning at politics is hugely profitable.
Mike from Iowa – If you are going to plagiarize an article or website on a blog, at least give credit to who actually wrote it. http://www.history.com/topics/stephen-a-douglas.
Your pardon, Paul. I never meant to claim that as my own. I only copied the relevant part since some people have short attention spans. Lesson learned, I hope.
@Mike IOWA absolute rubbish. You selectively plagiarize someone else’s 1 second idea for the sake of political smokescreen. There was significant differences between the two especially which was Douglas’s Democratic party views The blacks were inferior and did not deserve equal rights or equal treatment under the law. And that’s why, you don’t provide any links so the people can educate themselves and see what the candidates actually said. I guess that’s your white privilege again whitewashing the ugly history that you represent.
Panel discussions are nothing more than an exercise in patronization and talking down to people. That dog and pony show has one purpose and that is to allow those three to “teach” the public something rather than the other way around. Public servant? They are a contradiction in terms! I don’t know about anyone else but this whole idea that the three of them comprise expert testimony on issues of their choice is magnanimous at the very best. I’m with Stace……… if a candidate isn’t experienced and astute enough on the issues to argue point counter point on matters of public policy, they don’t belong in office. And those event organizers that are refusing to sponsor honest and open, issue based discourse are but one of many reasons why we have corruption and deception in politics….
Nelson-you are completely off your rocker. You said Douglas was pro-slavery. What I provided(not plagiarized) says he was against slavery. Get your head out of your A$$ and get with the program.
@Mike IOWA So, in your diluted world, someone who argued to maintain the status quo of slavery, who despised and stated blacks should never be treated as equal to whites, was “anti slavery!?” Read the debates, while he may have made select statements that gave the impression for politics of being antislavery, arguing to maintain slavery and explicitly claiming blacks were subhuman and should never be given rights or consideration under the law as people make it clear that his ACTIONS spoke louder than a couple select phrases. The position of the Democratic Party at that time was definitively proslavery!
Go enjoy your white privilege white washing history at someone else’s expense, cause your pipe dream has been shown to be that.
My final word, Nelson. You are the most ignorant ignoramus I have ever seen.
Douglas was anti-slavery. Period. End of discussion. Not my problem you can’t read and/or comprehend.
Today’s “debates” are indeed a pale version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln and Douglas had no moderator: they just went at it. Stace, I think you and I could pull off an event like that. Pick out one clear resolution, a statement that one of us Affirms and the other Negates. We agree to speech times and cross-examination times, then turn us loose in front of an audience. If Noem and Thune won’t debate, how about you and I put on a show for the voters and the press? We can debate as representatives of the most faithful, principled wings of our respective parties. You come do one here in District 3, I’ll come do one in District 19, and we’ll see if we can get on the Freedom Stage at the State Fair (which is a nice midway point between our districts, right?).
Are you game, Stace?
Douglas was pro-state’s rights. He didn’t support slavery, but he wasn’t about to put his neck on the line to abolish it. If a state chose to have slavery, he would support that choice. In fact, he was known for accusing Lincoln of thinking blacks were equal to whites. He also accused Lincoln of supporting interracial marriage, so although he wasn’t necessarily for slavery, he didn’t think much of blacks. Not many people at that time thought they were equal and that crossed all political lines. Someone who would allow slavery to continue if the choice was made outside of their hands doesn’t seem like a person that should be revered. Imagine if today, Obama said he would allow states to decide how they treat LGBT rights? Is that someone you would get behind if he was willing to allow states to discriminate if that choice was made by that state?
@Mike IOWA That’s like getting called ugly by a blobfish. I do accept some criticism in that what kind of knucklehead wastes his time discussing anything with a rabid .
@Daniel Buresh Douglas led the way in claiming to be against something, but supporting a controversial issue. A detailed historic examination of Douglas pointed out that he led the opposition against antislavery efforts in the North and makes a fair argument, as you alluded to, that his actions and efforts can fairly be described as proslavery, especially since he was a leading candidate for the Democratic Party which in fact supported slavery expansion and continuation: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0026.203/–was-stephen-a-douglas-antislavery?rgn=main;view=fulltext
@CAH We couldn’t get them to host a debate with the debate shy EB5 corruption king. You get them to host it? I am always ready to toe the mark on conservative issues. I would propose 2nd Amendment rights, abortion, illegal immigration, ??? Heck get them to invite leading contenders for the 2018 gubernatorial election. :-D
“led the way in claiming to be against something, but supporting a controversial issue.”
Sounds like a modern day politician playing both sides of the field. Douglas was on the wrong side so I’m not sure why we need to make him out to be something better than what he was….a spineless politician willing to allow slavery if it meant him being elected.
“Them”—Stace, who’s “them”? You and I could schedule events in Alexandria and Aberdeen (I like the alliterative symmetry) and host them ourselves. At the State Fair, we could talk to SD Farmers Union about speaking on the Freedom Stage.
Second Amendment, abortion, illegal immigration… gee, why not some bread-and-butter South Dakota issues, like K-12 funding, voter rights, corruption, and our tax system?
How about a compromise: I’ll come to your district to debate one of your culture-war topics if you come to my district to debate one of the practical policy issues I’ve laid out. Then we can negotiate with Farmers Union about the topic they want on the Freedom Stage at the State Fair. Game on?
Don’t do it, Mr. Nelson. It’s a trick!!
I, myself, have only beaten Mr. H in a couple of debates here in the blogs. You would do well not to get schooled by him in front of your home town senior center soup gathering.
I have yet to see any judge’s ballot with “grudz” circled. Refresh me, sir.
And don’t go luring Mr. Nelson out of a great opportunity to communicate with voters, expand his base, and demonstrate his thought-leadership among true Republicans.
It would be good for Mr. Nelson to communicate his thought-leadership among true Republicans instead of only among that little cadre of insaner than most ones.
@CAH Any debating on the issues in District 19 should be between the candidates therein. Owen may have to arrange a driver for my opponent, and we would have to wait an extended period of time for him to compile a list of disqualifying factors that are off limits for discussion, unless it is FOIA violations of the Bush Administration.
Happy to accept a debate challenge for the state fair, not sure I would be comfortable though giving any distracting cover to candidates unwilling to stand up for conservative issues out of preference for weasel DC political tactics of avoiding debates.
I’ll get him there Stace.
You going to promise to talk about the issues?
The only thing worse than politicians refusing to debate is politicians refusing answer questions on public forums like Dakota Free Press.
Come on, Stace: who says our debate would stand in the way of any other local debates that could be scheduled? Think of it as party building. Think of it as a way to put our stamp on our respective party’s agendas. Think of it as a way to look past traditional party politics.
If we could get SDFU to offer us a chance to debate, we would not be giving cover to any weasels; we’d be highlighting their weaselliness. We’d be modeling the kind of civil discourse we expect of our leaders.
So should I call SDFU and offer to provide an hour-long debate? Should I line up a hall here in Aberdeen for you and me to go at it? Would you like to line up a hall in Alexandria (and let’s do it before State Fair, before things got hot, so we don’t distract from either of our campaigns).