Former state legislator Stan Adelstein has made clear he finds Donald Trump unacceptable. Now he repeats his reminder to his fellow Republicans that they have a non-Clinton option to their own party’s disgraceful nominee. In a video just posted to Adelstein’s blog, an announcer reads an endorsement from Adelstein for Libertarian Presidential nominee Gary Johnson:
The number one quality for the next President of the United States is to be honest, the ability to tell the American people the truth. The only one I can count on to tell me the truth is one of our own, Gary Johnson [attributed to Stanford Adelstein, in campaign video, “Supports of Gary Johnson for President 2016,” 2016.10.07.
The video is cheap and sloppy, unable to accurately name the campaign committee producing the advertisement. It misuses multiple apostrophes. It needlessly directs viewers to learn more about North and South Dakota at their respective official state government websites—wasteful, because a campaign video for a candidate should do relentlessly add value to the candidate’s campaign, and sending voters on a wild Google chase to learn more about North and South Dakota will never result in a voter saying, “Hey, great, now that I know about road conditions in South Dakota, I really want to vote for Gary Johnson!”
Overarchingly, the video engages in the strange conceit of labeling Gary Johnson a “Dakotan.” Verbally, shoehorning Johnson’s birth in Minot and his upbringing in Aberdeen into one word may be accurate, but culturally, “Dakotan” is meaningless. I have never heard anyone use that word to describe his or her identity without a “North” or “South” on the front. I doubt our Indian neighbors use it; they will say “Dakota” just as they will say “Lakota” to describe their tribal affiliation. In Minot or Aberdeen, saying, “I’m a Dakotan!” is a sure way to say that you aren’t, North or South.
If Team Johnson is using this video, they should cut everything before 0:48 and everything after 1:05 and focus on the seventeen seconds that matter, Republican Stanford Adelstein’s endorsement of Libertarian Gary Johnson. That endorsement from a prominent South Dakota Republican carries more weight than any of the other fluff in the video.
Adelstein advocates the option I footnotingly mentioned Sunday: instead of Governor Dennis Daugaard’s and Senator John Thune’s wishy-washy* calls for Donald Trump to withdraw from the race, Republicans can get behind a more tolerable candidate with more classical conservative credentials than Trump or Clinton who is on the ballot in all 50 states and thus can conceivably win the Presidency… if Republicans get their poop in a group and backed him.
So, Republicans, are you going to listen? Adelstein is offering you a moral path. You can wash your hands of Trump, cast a vote in good conscience, and, as the video suggests, show that you can put principle over party.**
South Dakota Republicans for Gary Johnson—think about it, Dennis, John, SDGOP.
*Literally! wishing for something that it’s too late to do, trying to wash away their moral culpability for facilitating Trump’s rise.
**An image comes to mind: Republicans abandoning their Presidential nominee would be like the Russians abandoning Moscow in 1812. The Russians retreat, Napoleon marches into Moscow, hangs around for a month, then runs away with his collapsing, lice-ridden army. Replace “Trump” with “Napoleon,” “Moscow” with “GOP nomination,” and “army” with “Trump supporters.”
I am Republican and voting for Johnson.
I do think this guy is against Labor.
I have found that for much of the country, we are all North Dakotans… somehow South just doesn’t register with the people I meet. I guess it’s the snowy image of the Dakotas in the minds of people who have never been there… it’s all the frozen north. On the other hand, my wife is French and she says I’m a Dako-chien. (I’ll let you find your French-English dictionary to figure out that joke). But, anyway, the reason I’m commenting is to ask to do a Profile in Spinelessness on John Thune and his principled stances on presidential endorsements.
Mr. Stan can, at times, be a most lucid and sensible individual. I’ve always been a fan of Mr. Stan.
Cory,
You’ll have to rename your blog ‘North Dakota/South Dakota Free Press.
Voting for Johnson is a feel good for republicans.
Even with Trump’s falling numbers in the polls, Johnson doesn’t stand a chance.
If you want to keep Trump out the White House there is only one alternative and that is a vote for Hillary.
Adelstein is consistently silly. Even in advocating a course that makes sense, given the options we have, he’s kinda silly.
Bob, if you have any of those enormous Johnson signs left could you drop one off in Rapid the next time you’re on a roadtrip?
Roger, of course you are wrong. Numbers are numbers. If enough people do the sensible thing and vote for Johnson, both Trump and Hillary are denied their dreams of kingship.
It is my understanding that Gary Johnson lived in Aberdeen, S.D. from 1957 until 1966. He was born in Minot, N.D.. I wonder if he and Tom Daschle ever ran into each other back then in Aberdeen as kids?….. If so, it would have gone like this…..”I am going to be the majority leader of the US Senate someday”…… Oh yeah?….. Well, I am going to be President of the US some day….So there.”
Oh well, some achieve their dreams while others not so much… It is my understanding that Gary Johnson is not only geographically challenged and unaware of other world leaders, but is also anti-labor, as Moses11 mentioned, and he is also anti-Obamacare. So all of you disillusioned Trump supporters should go ahead and vote for Gary, but you young millennials who are not sure who to vote for, well, it is simple, it’s Hillary, that is if you want a positive future or even a future at all in order to achieve your dreams….
Bob,
With all due respect, I stand by my comment that Johnson doesn’t stand a chance. This campaign is now beyond the “ifs”.
You are right about numbers being numbers and if you look at the most recent polling, Johnson is quite far down.
stan, “how does it feel, to be on your own” ect.?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOT_BoGpCn4
What’s allepo? Your kidding (deer in headlights)
“Tom Daschle … has recommended that President George Bush nominate Adelstein (Tom’s aid for 7 years? that’s a grand child or two, right?) for the position on the FCC recently vacated by Gloria Tristani.” google. Tom was Obama’s health care czar. any reason you can’t vote for Hillary, stan, that you can tell us, rather than throw your vote away? Kind of nice of Tom for your family wouldn’t you say. Lots of young people had your son’s qualifications.
What is it with republicans electing uneducated inexperienced presidents? Rove (no college degree, but is primary political advisor for Geo. Bush who was obviously unprepared to be president. Wasn’t a governor, a legislator. No idea what he was doing so he ley cheney. run the country. Sara Palin. Need i say more? College degree from Idaho to their embarassment. Trump is educated like Geo. Bush but is a complete novice to Wash DC. He’ll do the same thing Geo. Bush did. nothing smart. Ronald Reagan, an actor for years, in 1940s, his wife provided the FBI with names of actors within the motion picture industry whom they believed to be communist sympathizers. Yeah he was elected gov from about ’67 to his presidency in 1981. Jesse Ventura and Hulk Hogan, I mean Arnold the terminator won governorships too. big woof.
this is the real world folks.
Roger, on renaming—oh no! Maybe they got the idea reading my blog!
On feeling good versus practical results: If I were John Thune, I’d walk into Reince Priebus’s office and push for a go-for-broke Libertarian strategy. Don’t just dump Trump, but release all the secrets they must have on Trump, all the conversations, all the notes from private meetings, absolutely destroy Trump. Acknowledge their kinship with the Libertarians, write big checks to every Libertarian state party for campaigning, and send orders down to every precinct captain to get out the vote for Johnson. Go all in for 26 days, and the GOP could stand a chance of beating Clinton without the moral stain of standing with Trump and putting the world at risk of nuclear annihilation.
So let me get this straight, Roger. You will only promote a vote for someone you think will win. We all wanna be in the winner’s alley, I guess. However, I’m willing to hang out with the losers when I know I’m on the moral high ground.
Bob, I’ll let Roger speak for himself, but I’ll note that if I thought Gary Johnson offered me a better chance of achieving my political agenda for the country than everyone else on the ballot, I’d advocate his election.
I live in the same real world as Roger. At this point, the idea that the GOP could use its vast influence to help Gary Johnson win and salvage its agenda is more realistic than the idea that it can fall back in line with Donald Trump and help him to victory. It may even be more realistic that they could achieve their goals by openly promoting an Electoral College revolt, telling voters that their GOP electors in every state will vote for Mike Pence for President and leave Donald Trump out. (Maybe that’s Daugaard’s and Thune’s gambit, but they’re not doing it boldly enough with full repudiation of Trump.) Either play would appeal to the sense of reality-TV drama and betrayal that so thrills many of Trump’s voters. Those voters aren’t watching PBS NewsHour. They want action, excitement, the unexpected. Give the audience a game-changer, a bold ploy by an aggressive player willing to upset the champ, and the ratings—er, excuse me, votes—will follow.
Cory, continuing your idea about dumping Trump: they could bring him in to the boardroom at Trump tower and live on national TV say “You’re fired!”
It won’t happen, but it would be spellbinding TV.
Donald Trump is where he is because he knows how to create spellbinding TV. Jeb Bush lost to him because Jeb Bush makes dull TV. This close to the election, the GOP’s only way to win is to outdo Trump in TV drama.
Bob,
As Cory and some others on this blog know I have always supported Hillary.
I the 2007-2008 primary campaign I supported and campaigned for loser Hillary against now President Obama.
That is hardly picking winners.
Adelstein makes an interesting point in his parties defeat; Mercer does too (“I voted in only one presidential election in my life. It was in 1976, I was 18 and I think my vote went for Jimmy Carter”) and disappoints me; has he given up sex too if he writes about the opposite sex?Occassionally questioning republican abuse in the state, he is more often a mouth piece for the administration. And finally, Tsitrain, thank god, a rational republican points out the state’s failure expanding Medicaid and wonders, but really, when we have medical institutions (RCCHospital) whose CEOs purportedly push republican partisan myths on local city officials and leaders, what’s not to understand.
republicans govern with faulty emotion
Randy Barnett, a Libertarian law professor thinks Johnson is more to the left and will take votes from Hillary. He did a good interview where he points out Libertarians would be better off being part of either the Democratic or Republican party to influence change there since it’s not realistic for a Libertarian to ever get elected president. He also said the two party system is really almost collusion (my words) far removed from the constitution because the framers actually detested the idea of parties. The electoral college was not created with them in mind. Modern day liberalism he blames on the Progressive Party from early last century. Interesting man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NEkgriPv3Q