Kevin Woster shares his take on Marty Jackley’s clever ploy of hiring fundagelical crusader Dale Bartscher for his gubernatorial campaign:
I’d still argue that Jason Glodt and utility players to be named later are likely to be handling most of the campaign’s heavy lifting. But Jackley is right about Bartscher’s upbeat attitude and skills in working with people. He is a pleasant, likable guy, whether or not you agree with him on key social issues.
Jackley rejects my “trending hard right” argument, saying that he’ll have a Reagan-like big-tent approach to staffing, with all Republican perspectives represented. But Bartscher’s hiring clearly continues Jackley’s strategy to lock up a good share of the conservative base as early in the campaign as he can.
…It won’t hurt in fundraising, either. There’s money in the evangelical community, and not just in the bank account of Rapid City furniture mogul Bob Fischer. This connection helps Jackley compete with Noem and her proven ability to raise bunches of campaign money, a substantial amount of which landed first in her U.S. House fund, to be transferred to her state campaign fund [Kevin Woster, “Going All Dave Kranz on Marty Jackley, the Dale Bartscher Hiring and the Campaign Battle for Evangelicals,” SDPB, 2017.06.27].
We have Jackley and Kristi Noem fighting to prove they sit at the right hand of the Lord. We have the only Democrat so far in the governor’s race, Billie Sutton, mentioning God on every page of his announcement speech. I’m still waiting for any gubernatorial candidate to address how he or she will govern for the 21% of us South Dakotans who aren’t Christian or what place they think our apostate views have in our fair state.
I’d like to think Noem could exploit some rift between Bartscher and the crowd that last month pushed him out of Family Heritage Alliance (and said weird, illogical things to justify that out-push). Set the fundies against each other, pitch a primary battle so bloody the losers are left disillusioned and disinclined to vote in November.
But if the Sharia for Jesus crowd of which Bartscher is a part can rally to vote for Donald John Trump in record numbers, they’ll have no problem recoalescing for either of these lesser Republican evils for governor in November after next. The only opening for Democrats in Jackley’s Barstcher hire is the hope that the Christian absolutists will fight the primary like it’s the end of the world (and for a lot of Bartscherites, it is) and thus deplete the resources available to fight the Democratic nominee in the homestretch.
No offense to God, but if I wanted him or her as my governor, I would vote that way. I get kind of tired of what religion or what person thinks that God is more in favor of them than to their opponent.
How about this, let God do his or her job and politicians do the necessary task of creating jobs, or making sure our water is safe, our women, children, elderly, disabled and poor. How about finding a way to practice the teachings they claim to all have the handle on, respecting and loving one another for who or what we are. God is kind of busy these days in wars that we seem hell bent on preserving, on the wholesale murders of people of color on the streets. God has bequeathed that a murdered Black citizen is now worth some 3 million dollars, imagine that. So lets hear them tell us how they are gonna take care of the corruption, how they are gonna take care of healthcare so that our elderly and disabled will not worry about living the remainder of their lives on the streets. We already know what God wants regarding that, it is in their Book, so let us hear how they intend to follow the Book’s road map.
And The Winner Is … the unclaimed “observant majority”
The majority of South Dakotans who claim a religious affiliation are Christians. As of 2010, Mainline Protestantism was the most popular religious tradition in South Dakota, with 196,001 adherents. Catholicism was second with 148,883 adherents, and Evangelical Protestantism was third with 118,142 adherents. 337,348 residents remained unclaimed.
I’m with you, Jerry. I have yet to see the piety of our current legislators get us any closer to solving the daily practical problems of all South Dakotans.
Regardless of those who roll their eyes at the absurdities, it’s likely that the person who convinces the most SoDakians that (s)he has the best line to god is the one who will be the next governor.
That person will be running as a Republican, because a Democrat, by definition, can’t have a better connection to god, no matter how many mentions (s)he gives god in his/her campaign speeches.
Makes a person want to run over a ten-commandments icon somewhere.
Dang, Bob, I’m out, then, since my line is, “I have no line to God, and neither do you. We have to figure this out ourselves.”
It’s not whether one has a line to god, it’s whether one can convince idiots that one does.
My friend Bob and I are again in lockbrain on this issue.
Jackley is FULLY embracing the hard right by naming this phony as campaign manager. If Liberals don’t step up and recognize this mad man for Governor, SD will soon lose its ability to become all the good that it once was.
If Jackley’s this bad, then let him win the primary. Let us have him as our punching bag in November 2018.
So Jackley will be easier to beat than Noem, I suppose? I know people on the rez who voted for her ’cause she’s “cute”. cripes
Everybody needs to recognize that we’re voting on government, on an affair of the greatest consequence, not merely a TV game show.