Thinking he has a good thing going, upcoming KSOO radio host Patrick Lalley extends his argument that South Dakota Democrats erred in holding Billie Sutton’s campaign announcement at his ranch on the banks of the Missouri River.
First, let’s point out that it is incorrect to say “South Dakota Democrats” erred. While the presence of prominent South Dakota Democrats like Max Sandlin, Bernie Hunhoff, Scott Parsley, and party chair Ann Tornberg signals Sutton’s status as a party favorite, there is no sign that Sutton campaign decisions are made at party headquarters. Billie Sutton is his own man, and he, like any other candidate, can choose to announce his campaign wherever he wishes. If any error occurred, it was Sutton’s, not South Dakota Democrats’.
Second, Lalley is working really hard to pre-synecdochize the whole of Sutton’s campaign with one small part that cannot represent a whole that does not yet exist. Lalley rickety-tacks together statistics and speculation to assert that the only voters Sutton can win are in Lalley’s idiosyncratic conception of the Sioux Falls metro area. Lalley then assumes that when Sutton wheels up to Sioux Falls voters six months, six weeks, six days before Election Day, the impression he makes will be completely overwhelmed by their long memories of how seventeen months before the election, way back when Trump was still President, that darned yahoo held his first campaign event on his remote ranch instead of downtown at the Holiday Inn. That’s as absurd as thinking that Sutton secured the vote of every beef eater by announcing on his ranch and serving beef sandwiches one day seventeen months before the election.
Now sure, as the campaign rolls on, if Sutton does nothing but attend rodeos and issue Facebook communiqués from the ranch, we’ll all be shouting Lalley’s refrain: Billie! You’ve got a couple hundred thousand votes to pick up—go to town! But Sutton has already put the lie to Lalley’s thesis by going to Lalley’s town right after the ranch announcement. A guy can only be in one place at a time. Sutton spent the first hour of his campaign at the ranch, but he spent the first day of his campaign working town and country. If the full seventeen months of the Sutton campaign look like his first day, he’ll be investing sufficient time in the voters Lalley places at the center of his universe and the many more voters who constitute the full South Dakota political universe.
Speaking of universes, Lalley’s universe is oddly constructed. Far exceeding the Census Bureau’s four-county read, Lalley extends the Sioux Falls metro area out to Brookings and Vermillion. He posits that Rapid City is hopeless for Sutton. He doesn’t mention Watertown, Huron, or Aberdeen (where I hear Sutton is making some in-person calls today). And he has yet to mention in either of his “Dems screwed up, Sioux Falls is all that matters” essays the Indian vote in Sisseton, Fort Thompson, Eagle Butte, Mission, or Pine Ridge, where the issue is not swaying voters toward the Democratic Party but swaying them to register and vote (which the SDDP is working on).
Lalley acknowledges at the end of yesterday’s essay that “Your average political operative spends way, way, way more time with this stuff than I do….” He’s right about that. The only circumstances under which an average political operative would tell a statewide candidate, “Hey, let’s spend all of our time between Brookings and Vermillion,” would be a hopeless vanity run where the candidate can’t marshal the resources to drive more than two hours and spend the night away from Sioux Falls and thus counts on Facebook and KELO TV to get his name out to the 50% of our Democratic base and 47% of the electorate that Lalley treats as not worth Democrats’ time.
The campaign will be much longer than each candidate’s opening day. Sutton at least made an impression with his launch (remind me: when and where did Kristi Noem and Marty Jackley announce?) and is getting all sorts of press from Lalley and other statewide media. And if the point of a rollout is to win attention, then Sutton’s rollout, far from an error, is a home run.
I’m willing to bet if SD was running a commercial to get people to visit the state they would be more likely to run clips that included scenes from the Sutton Ranch than clips filmed in the Downtown Holiday Inn.
Lalley is the synecdoche for South Dakota politics–small minded, obsessed that his trivial, irrelevant, and self-absorbed preferences are the laws of the universe. If it’s not ugly and petty, do what you can to make it so–the guiding principle of the Wart Collage.
When I first looked at those beautiful bluffs and blue skies, I knew Sutton had made the right choice to make his announcement right there. :)
Nick is right, the SD department of Tourism should start focusing on the Missouri River bluffs more instead of just the Black Hills all the time. I live an hour from the Mississippi and it is downright dirty. I won’t swim in there and won’t eat any fish from there. SDs Missouri is so much more cleaner.
I think Lalley is working too hard on trying to shake off his liberal-leaning reputation.
Now, I HOPE the SDDP is going to embrace Sutton and work hard to try to get him elected.
Cory spends way, way, way too much time paying attention to Lalley. Lalley is irrelevant.
Before I quit paying attention to Lalley I’ll offer Sutton’s campaign manager a bit of advice he/she has probably already thought of. What Lalley really wants is to get Sutton on his show, but his gigantic ego won’t permit Lalley to make the inquiry. Mr./Ms. campaign manager should book Sutton on Lalley’s show. Even if hardly anybody listens, it’s one of the things a campaign should be doing.
Great word … synecdoche. I take it to mean when you remove a part of an assertion and extrapolate the remainder to encompass the entirity of your assertion. e.g. When Troy Jones ignores the fact that Pres. Trump asked James Comey to alter his investigation of Michael Flynn and instead asserts that Pres. Trump didn’t try to “stop” the investigation of Michael Flynn. Thus, Pres. Trump did nothing wrong because he didn’t try to stop an FBI investigation. This overlooks the fact that asking the FBI to alter an investigation is obstruction of justice and a highly impeachable act.
OR … When Stace Nelson ignores that Southern states started exclusively sending Republican lawmakers to Washington after Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and asserts instead that Democrats are the party of racism because even after Pres. Johnson enacted civil rights legislation and forced integration on the Southern states, that these states continued to elect Democrats to local and state offices. Thus, he asserts that Democrats are the historical and current party of racism … ignoring that Southern states are racist and Southern states are now exclusively Republican states (That’s what’s South about South Dakota). It follows that the Republican Party is the party of racism and tolerates racists.
~ Two examples of how these two windbags use synecdoche to skew their assertions and mislead, misdirect and basically lie to the public.
I submit that Lalley is just too darn lazy to get in his car and travel a few miles to cover a major news story.
Lalley’s arrogance thinks that Billie Sutton should come to him and beg for an interview.
Lalley posts a lot of numbers on voter registration in the Sioux Falls area, but forgets that it is voter turn out that matters. In Rapid City municipal elections this past Tuesday only 13% of those republicans turned out to vote.
What all candidates have to gird their loins for is that mid-terms have notoriously poor turnout and it will be necessary for republicans and Democrats to worker harder to get the vote out.
Sutton’s announcement from his ranch was a perfect setting and most people loved it if you pay attention to all the Facebook likes. If Lalley has a Facebook account it is likely that he has never received the number of likes that Billie Sutton has received so far.
Bill Sutton returned us to the days of yester years when candidates often announced their candidacies from the front porch of their homes.
Plain and simple, Lalley is envious of the support Sutton has received.
Roger says get in the car and travel… and I start envisioning my daughter getting just a little older, being able to hold down the fort on her own, and allowing me to drive around the state every week, podcasting from a different location every time, interviewing folks where they are. Sure, I’d still swing through Sioux Falls, since there are lots of people to interview there, but with our phones now able to act as radio stations, posting our conversations to the Internet for the world to listen to whenever they want, why not hit the road with that radio talk show?
I completely agree with holding Billie Sutton’s campaign announcement at his ranch. I see zero miscalculation in that move.
Lalley is just trying to appear smart by manufacturing a unique reason why the Democrat might loose. Fortunately for us all, Billie’s not the guy Lalley thinks he is.
And I love the idea of an on the road radio talk show!
South Dakota Public Radio has taken their noon show on the road on occasion. Weekend Edition Saturday did it this morning.