South Dakota’s #1 Political Website does not make excuses for lackluster performance. Pat Powers, on the other hand, does:
I probably won’t win any math awards, but it’s pretty clear that the amount of blogging one does is directly proportional to how busy a person is at their employment. And as of this week, I think I’m officially on overload.
Big project at my day job, combined with my busiest primary ever for political work, plus not one, but two listings popping up for me at once, and trying to get a home sale put together successfully….
That leaves me finally tapping things out on my iPad at midnight – 1 AM now, as I try to settle in to recharge my batteries. Because I’m off to Sioux Falls, Madison, and parts unknown up north all before Friday.
That’s not a lot of time to read, contemplate and “philosophize” about politics in general [Pat Powers, “Stuff is going on… Some negative, some… well, you decide,” Dakota War College, 2016.05.25].
No one tunes in to hear about our personal lives, Pat. Marketing 101: if you’re going to brand yourself as a leader in South Dakota’s political blogosphere, not write vague, passive-aggressive attacks wrapped in excuses for low output. If you can’t keep up, give your sponsors’ money back and shut down your server.
And just reading that headline—”Stuff is going on… Some negative, some… well, you decide”—makes clear that the author has run out of gas.
Powers spends his pity party bashing conservatives who are attacking his favored candidates. He couches his attack in language that would allow him to technically disavow any attack, but it’s there. First, he vaguely dismisses the negative campaigning waged by various South Dakota PACs this month while trying to portray himself as a paragon of political virtue:
Stan Adelstein shook off the cobwebs, and wrote a check or two and had someone do a piece for one of his several PACs. Rich Hilgemann’s PAC in Aberdeen did Stace Nelson’s bidding, and went hard negative using photos of Nelson’s opponent at a charity fundraiser at SDSU. As mentioned in an earlier post, the Lautensclager gun group is attacking from Colorado, and a South Dakota Right to Life affiliated PAC is sending out attack postcards.
Some are poorly done, but the tone may lead us back to the primary of 2014, where much of that started to backfire. The only negative piece I was commissioned to design last primary ended up being pulled before it went to homes because it could have cost the candidate the lead. The candidate won, so, it may have been a good call [Powers, 2016.05.25].
Powers has spent over ten years blogging a constant stream of negative attacks against his political targets. He has little moral authority to attack PACs who do the same in postcard form.
But in his pique at South Dakota Right to Life’s citing Dakota Free Press and not his substanceless blog to favor Stace Nelson over Pat’s preferred mainstream boy-toy Caleb Finck, Powers has the temerity to suggest South Dakota’s leading anti-abortion group is losing its voice:
The other thing that is getting my attention is the amount of complaining I’ve been hearing about what had once been a good read on candidates, but seems to have fallen on hard times in recent years – the South Dakota Right to Life Voters Guide.
…Last election in one instance, they relied on a NARAL website (of all sources) to comment about a GOP candidate. And they got the candidate’s position flat wrong. This year, it was sourcing a candidate assessment from a pro-choice, liberal atheist Democrat State Senate candidate. And again they badly missed the mark.
…SDRTL needs to take a hard look at their legislative outreach, as well as how they survey lawmakers. When they correctly list “did not respond” for some, and whether intentional or not, instead do a hit job on others who did the same thing, there’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
Lest they find out what a loss of prestige & moral authority costs them when they really need to count on it [Powers, 2016.05.25].
Note that Powers is too busy to explain what SDRTL got wrong about Caleb Finck. He’s too busy to name the candidate or the source in question. And most importantly, he won’t even take responsibility for the argument he’s making. He ascribes the complaints to nameless sources (and remember, Powers has a chronic problem mistaking singular for plural).
If you won’t own your failure to perform, Pat, at least own the rare original arguments you make. If you want to bash South Dakota Right to Life, don’t hide behind nameless others. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
Trust me, Pat. As South Dakota’s #1 political blogger, I know what I’m talking about.
“I probably won’t win any math awards, but it’s pretty clear that the amount of blogging one does is directly proportional to how busy a person is at their employment.” Pat Powers
No, Pat won’t win any math awards. The amount of blogging one does is not directly proportional to how busy they are. It’s inversely proportional to how busy they are. Now, I better get busy or my boss will …
The only time Pat Powers whines about “negative campaigning” is when its factual information about establishment “Republican” candidates which shows they are not the conservative Republicans they claim to be.
He is the biggest purveyor of dishonest attacks in SD politics.
Calling his establishment paid trollery “SD’s #1 Political Blog?” Is like calling a steaming pile of male bovine excrement, “SD’s finest beef product.”
I’d post it over on his blog; however, what’s the use? He delete’s so many posts that Goebbels sent him the golden match award from hell.
Hey Pat! Show that video that little Iowa cretin Dan Lederman ginned up for RINO Mike’s campaign; or recite the idiotic lies that I threatened to kill Nick Moser; etc, etc, ad nauseam, and then lecture us all again about dishonest negative campaigning.
I’m your huckleberry, Pat. How about you stop attacking the good fellas over at Prairie Country PAC for outing your candidate and break your little rat teeth on the big ugly old Marine, again.
Powers, who has never spent a day in uniform, has a long history of mocking those who have served for their service. He did it to me during my unsuccessful PUC run a few years back and he has done it to Stace Nelson. I don’t know if his animosity extends to all who served or only Marine Corps veterans. It’s strange behavior but I’ve seen him do it repeatedly.
Powers seems like a very unhappy person.
@Nick Nemec He’s a typical internet tough guy, lots of bluster and bravado sniping at people on his blog; however, in real life he lurks in the corner and would never dare to walk up and spit his nastiness into your face in person.
@Jenny You know you are in trouble if he starts calling you “his friend.” I’m curious how much of the cowardly attacks on the Prairie Country PAC on his blog are his posts. Regardless, he deletes so many other posts as fast as his fingers can punish the keyboard or trys to out anyone that posts anything against his RINO clientele, obviously he condones the cowardly attacks against Rich, Drew, et al.
PERHAPS THE WAR TOILET IS A REFLECTION OF THE BIGGER PICTURE WE LIBS SEE HAPPENING (sorry caps button), like NPR which features BIG programs like APM’s Kai Ryssdal’s MARKET PLACE which is slyly turning into a Koch Bros. “owed” shill for the right wing economic theory hawks. today he announced we all are going to have to work harder and workplace output is “way down”. fear and loathing as the Kochs desperately try to sell their empire theory on us minions. puke
like calling Budweisers “America”. don’t we have a copyright on that?
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/17574-pbs-and-the-koch-brother-scandal
APM is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group… and much of American Public Media’s programming content was distributed by Public Radio International, which itself was named “American Public Radio”, or APR,..until 1994. APR was formed… to distribute A Prairie Home Companion. PRI owns and produces numerous programs today, but still also distributes diverse programming from many sources. In contrast, APM, which was founded in 2004, predominantly distributes content that it owns and produces itself….wiki
In NC, Kochs are launching against a GOP legislator who voted against their interests. AFP is launching a six-figure digital ad and direct mail campaign against Ellmers. But the real damage may be from the group’s ground game.
On Wednesday, The Hill spent a day with AFP as its North Carolina grassroots army visited the homes of likely Republican primary voters in Ellmers’ newly redrawn second district ahead of the June 7 primary.
More than 2,000 doors were knocked on that day, according to state director Donald Bryson.
A vanload of conservative women in their 50s and 60s drove around the Raleigh suburbs, alighting at homes targeted by the Kochs’ voter targeting application. They were supported by
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/281412-koch-group-launches-ground-war-against-gop-lawmaker
Cory raises the bar in the blog-o-sphere to a level few others can match.
Just curious – what is Powers’ real job?
Curt, Pat announced last year that he was going to work as a bailbondsman for Dan Lederman. That explains his affection for the payday lenders: he and they are both part of the poverty industry. However, Pat does not current list his work for Lederman/Speedy Bail Bonds on his LinkedIn page. Powers does list “Leavitt Recreation & Hospitality Insurance, Pat Powers Design/Dakota Campaign Store/SD Realty Print, Century 21 Gustafson Krogman and Associates.”
I would never let Powers access my property or my records for any insurance or realty purpose, and I certainly won’t be buying any campaign postcards, positive or negative, from him.
And thanks for the compliment, Curt! Keep spreading the word! The more people who read South Dakota’s #1 political website, the better an outcome we’ll have in November.
Stace, unlike Pat, I welcome your posts. I welcome posts from SD Right to Life. Rich, Ken, and PCPAC can drop by with their commentary. I won’t spit in any of your faces, but I will look any of you in the eye and tell you when you are wrong.
Nick, I agree: Pat’s situational respect for the military is disgusting. He flies the soldier flag when convenient (like his desperate claim that Referred Law 19/SB 69 is actually pro-military, and that those of us trying to kill it don’t support the troops), but he gives no respect at all to your service or Stace’s.
Hey, here’s an idea, don’t go to PP’s blog. If everyone would stop going there, the blog would die. I quit after a very short period of time in reading the swill and getting post’s deleted.
Putting Pat Powers in the same category as Cory H., on the Internet is like comparing a rotten apple to a ripe tangerine.
Waaay back when I was academically studying conservative talk radio and Rush Limbaugh’s techniques, I tried to study some of Pat Powers’ approach as well. I lost interest in PeePee’s formula when I realized he is just a complete hack who’s more void of substance then everyone I had ever seen in his category.
PeePee’s not even interesting. His readers/followers have to work pretty hard to dilute themselves into believing that he’s got leverage. It’s the conserva-radicals blind faith in that PeePee brings leverage to the election table – which is his only leverage.
I actually take great comfort in that PeePee is all conservatives have on the internets in South Dakota.