Gordon Howie bemoans the liberal voting records of South Dakota’s Congressional delegation. Senator John Thune, Senator Mike Rounds, and Representative Kristi Noem are all Republicans, but they fail on the scorecard posted by Conservative Review®, led by conservative radio-talker Mark Levin. Thune scores 50%, Noem 43%, and Rounds a dismal 17%.
Rounds tanks for funding the government, supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, confirming the Attorney General, and paying for Medicare. Rounds must be a socialist—he’s right next to Senator Bernie Sanders, who scores 16%.
But Rounds won’t get any Dakota Free Press awards for liberalism. I reserve those awards for the zero-percenters on Conservative Review®’s Liberty Score®: Senators Coons, Feinstein, Kaine, and Murray (what? No Al Franken? Heck, he was all the way up at 4%) and Reps. Rice, Beyer, Norton, and Pierluisi (Norton represents D.C.; Pierluisi represents Puerto Rico—fellow liberals, it’s time to push for D.C. and P.R. statehood!).
Howie’s unhappy, but what’s he going to do about it? Efforts to mobilize his fellow fundamentalists to effectively oppose the mainstream Republican Party have fizzled in South Dakota. Howie fielded only 3% versus Rounds’s 50% in last year’s Senate election. The only announced principled conservative challenger to Thune, Kurt Evans, called off his campaign this week, and none of Howie’s would-be party crashers have stepped up to fill that gap or to announce a primary challenge to Rep. Noem. The vast majority of Republican voters in this state seem content with the slogan-only Republicanism of their Congressional delegation, and the Howie minority can’t find the magic words or campaign finance to knock down that complacency.
Conservative Republicans continue as they have for many years preach fear to the people. Often fear of the federal debt. Those steely eyed west River ranchers forgot that they borrowed money on their cattle a couple of years ago and found themselves begging for federal cash. Of course they could have bought insurance on those herds but why do that when the feds were going to help? Hell, everyone borrows money from families buying a new home to businesses building new factories.
This hypochondria of debt has made Republicans in DC into hypocrites. They claim to support a smaller government, free of debt. But then they need more money for Ellsworth AFB, pine beetles, the Spearfish Fish Hatchery, farm programs, highway money, Lewis and Clark pipeline, flood damages, pheasant production and of course more tax cuts! And when those ranchers started crying about their cattle…
Oh, and then when we get a federal program into South Dakota lets divert the cash to our friends. We can complain that the program doesn’t work but we won’t skip a payday. How conservative!
It is easy to see where this can cause confusion when DC voting records are scrutinized. The suckers that vote for these “conservatives” are right to be outraged.
Either the democrats have made more difference than we realize, or the people of the state of South Dakota are more Democrat thinking that the registration shows, or the right wingers have gotten so radical that the main line Republicans realize the right wingers are just not on track anymore.
I have pointed out previously (and Jeff Barth parrots with his sarcasm) these 3 K-street loving special interest commandos are not reflective of conservatism.
Sad that South Dakota’s contingent are adding to the problems in DC through their crony loving ways.
DD-it isn’t just SoDak’s wingnuts. Look at Kansas,Oklahoma,Alaska,Wisconsin,Texas and other wingnut strongholds. Alabama is virtually bankrupt-morally and financially. So is Kansas. Wisconsin is debt ridden and yet Walker wants even more power to do more damage to Wisconsin’s economy.
Jeff Barth wrote:
>“They claim to support a smaller government, free of debt. But then they need more money for Ellsworth AFB, pine beetles, the Spearfish Fish Hatchery, farm programs, highway money, Lewis and Clark pipeline, flood damages, pheasant production and of course more tax cuts!”
There are some syntax errors in this article, but the information is important:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/19/why-we-still-need-rand-paul/
“Rand Paul … stands apart from the rest of the primary field in one crucial way: He actually understands the complicated dynamics of monetary policy. And judging from what we’re starting to see happen around the world, this will be an invaluable skill set in 2016…
“Already the Fed is the biggest buyer of U.S. treasuries, having bought 71 percent of America’s debt issuance in 2013 and now owning more than twice as much as China ($2.8 trillion versus $1.1 trillion). Of course, the Fed buys treasuries with money created out of thin air. Combined with other QE-related money expansion, the Fed has more than quadrupled the monetary base since the Great Recession began in 2007, from $876 billion to $4 trillion today. How much more air is the Fed going to try and squeeze into this bubble?”