Holy cow! My South Dakota Democratic Party spent $2.5 million more than they told us in the 2016 election cycle, and we still got shellacked?
Newly revealed draft audit findings for the years 2015-2016 show that the South Dakota Democratic Party understated disbursements by $2.5 million, received $67,182 worth of contributions from unregistered organizations and failed to disclose $46,097 worth of debts and obligations [Seth Tupper, “Audit Finds Violations by South Dakota Democratic Party,” Rapid City Journal, 2019.08.21].
We didn’t even spend that money in South Dakota; apparently this is just the Federal Election Commission’s accounting of the widespread and already much-reported funneling of money from state parties to the losing Hillary Clinton campaign, which denied state parties funds they could have used to win a few more Legislative seats and build their bench. Clinton said the funds were raised to help rebuild state parties and help Democrats all the way down the ticket. In April 2016, Bernie Sanders said Team Clinton was “looting funds meant for the state parties to skirt fundraising limits on her presidential campaign.”
Failure to report $2.5 million, out of $3.2 million total in disbursements, is no small oversight. According to the FEC’s draft audit report, the South Dakota Democratic Party says “it overlooked filing procedures and required better training on reporting to the commission.” We must not have gotten the training we needed after making similar but much smaller errors in the 2010 cycle.
The FEC draft audiet report also says, “SDDP added that there was no intent to understate disbursements on the original reports filed.”
While we wait for the FEC to sort out intent and penalties, perhaps we can find a Democratic nominee who won’t overstate real disbursements to team members downticket.
Bernie was correcto mundo. That is what irks a lot of us when Democrats pull the same crap as republicans do. We are better than this and those that capitulated to Clinton should be ashamed of themselves.
I said this a few years back, and most of you laughed at me, but the SD Dems’ best move at this point is to close up shop and register as Republicans.
It was true two years ago. Now it’s glaringly obvious.
So let me get this strait; that was $2.5 million raised in SD that was sent to the national party/Clinton campaign? If so…wow. That money would have gone a long way if it were used to help local legislative candidates who constantly struggle for funds. If my math is correct, that could have equated to a little over $35,000 that could have been spent trying to win each of our 70 legislative seats if it had all been funneled to candidates for the state house and senate.
Registering R is ultimately a bad idea. South Dakota doesn’t need a bigger one-party monolith. South Dakota needs an effective and inclusive opposition party.
Remington, good question. If i understand the national articles about the Clinton plan, Clinton’s team raised the money, distributed it to the states, then got the money back. So I don’t think $2.5M came from SD pockets… but I’m not sure.
But you leap to exactly the math I considered: $2.5M divided among 105 Legislative candidates is $23K+, enough to run a really good Legislative campaign almost anywhere in SD.
That’s a shame. SD candidates could have really used that $. Really.
Now if Cory is correct that it was just an accounting gimmick that probably most major candidates use to skirt campaign contribution limits — well.
That’s one more reason for a constitutional amendment for publicly funded campaigns ONLY! Our current system of corporate bribery is getting us just what we’d expect, rotten to the core government.
Sen. Warren campaigns on changing to publicly funded campaigns to end that corruption and she is exactly right. It has to go for our democracy to survive. Otherwise our country is only as democratic as the Kochs, Waltons, big banks, big pharma, big oil, etc, decide to let us be. Of course that’s not democratic at all.
The sin was not in squandering $2.5M. That was never real. The scheme was just a paperwork maneuver concocted by Clinton Campaign sharps and the DNC to turn ‘soft’ money into ‘hard’ and leave a few dollars behind in exchange for the favor. The sin was in failing to adequately and accurately account for the transactions.
The sad fact is that the rules are such a mess that these type of shenanigans are common practice in big-time electoral politics in our country. Someone should drain the swamp.
Worth noting: if the state party had spent that money on state candidates instead of playing Clinton’s game, the state party wouldn’t be facing an audit and bad press right now, because only the feds actually pay attention to and audit campaign finance reports. Has any South Dakota Secretary of State ever audited a South Dakota campaign finance report?
In politics as in groceries, whenever you can, buy local!
Hey, just a thought: should the SDDP declare bankruptcy and dissolve, and let a new party form in its place, a party committed to spending exclusively on state campaigns?
I believe it maybe time to start a state PAC that parallels the state party and works to accomplish what the SDDP apparently cannot get done on its own.
This current situation is not Paula, Randy, or Stacey’s fault, but of much their time, energy, and fundraising over the next year or two will be spent just on recovering from all of this. Then, once it is stablized – assuming it is – we are looking at 2022 with Thune on the ballot, an incumbent Republican governor on the ballot, and if Trump is out of the White House by then (Hopefully!), there will be anti-Democratic sentiment in the state due to a Democratic presidency.
There definitely does seem to be a need for some kind of receivership concerning all of this, but I think it would work best and quicker, if it was parallel to all of this current turmoil, thus allowing its energy and idealism to not be swallowed up by this current mess.
The bigger question is, where is Tom Daschle, Tim Johnson, SHS, and Brendan Johnson in all of this?
The fact that all of them have been on the sidelines watching this debacle over the last few years says a lot about the viability of the Dem party.
Neal, with all due respect to those great Democrats that you have mentioned, your question is a just and fair one. But I would also ask where are Scott and Michelle who left the Republican Party for the Democratic Party in this state over the last few years? You would think that their interest in and enthusiasm for the party – and what it really stands for – would be enormous and could lead us out of this decade long malaise as well.
If the Republicans had done this all of you would rant for days and there would be 200+ posts. Amazing how you all sugar coat it. “We’re better than this….” LOL. Politicians are corrupt. Parties are corrupt. Yet each of you believe the blue morons have your best interest in mind yet they’ve been up there for YEARS! Doing Jack. Wake up.
What does past leadership of the Democratic party have to say?
Crickets…
Yet, Steve, you claim everyone is corrupt, but you continue to exert yourself mightily to defend Republicans. We just can’t trust you to contribute honestly to a discussion about the good of the Republic.
John KC, if we need to create an organization to do what the SDDP doesn’t do well, we need to consider what’s not getting done. The primary unmet goal is winning elections. But we don’t need a PAC for that; we need an alternative party.
It seems to grudznick that what sad leadership of the Democrat Party in South Dakota mostly resides on these bloggings right here, with only Messrs. H. and C. being actual South Dakota Democrats with some voice of reason and politeness. The rest are from out-of-state. Young Ms. Hawks is probably still trying to find out what sort of an Odd Fellows Club this is, of which she has become Sovereign Grand Master.
Clinton bait and switched the down ticket money. Bernie did not. I think there was only on politico in South Dakota that got any money and that was Clara Hart, if my memory serves.
“Sanders underscored that belief as he turned his attention this past week to helping several progressive candidates in races at both the national and local level.
On Tuesday, he announced he had sent emails to his massive supporter list to raise cash for eight state legislative candidates in South Carolina, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Illinois, California, Colorado and Vermont.” https://www.npr.org/2016/05/28/479757235/be-like-bernie-sanders-looks-to-spread-his-political-wealth
Cory is onto something, the SDDP needs to reorganize by going away. Out with the old and on with the bold.
Steve Pearson – the usually lazy republican blogger Pat Powers has at least 6 posts critical of the Democrats situation, go over there and celebrate.
I have always kept my political contributions local, city, county, and state,
that way I know what the candidates are spending the money on.
Cory, we do need to win elections, but I question if a third party can do that in most cases. It would only divide the Democratic vote.
I would prefer to use a PAC to parallel the SDDP and not to compete with it, but to complement it.
If the PAC succeeded, then the SDDP would succeed, and the playbook and talent of the two would eventually merge; and thus, there would not be a need eventually for that PAC.
What I really like about this idea, is that the PAC wouldn’t have to worry about internal party fighting and it could just concentrate on the essentials of targeting races, fundraising, canvassing, and authentic GOTV.
I’m surprised that any republicans are commenting. I thought they would be in mourning after learning the sweet Butina cheated on their boy erickson with Patrick byrne.
Is this how the DFL came into being, as the defacto Democrat/Progressive party in the state of MN? Which is, by land mass, mostly a flaming red state, with only the Gomorric blue mass of the Twin Cities and the polyps of St. Cloud and Duluth offsetting the majority of the land owners.
grudzie … You’re known for your anti-South Dakota rantings about out-of-staters posting on Cory’s blog. I went to the most commented on recent post (278 comments) and I counted five out of staters. Me – Debbo – Don Pay – Mike from Iowa and Leslie. Five out of the hundreds who comment on DFP. Can you name anymore?
I am ashamed I did not include Mr. Pay, although not a South Dakotan, as a Democrat who is reasonable and polite. My apology to him.
And … every one of us was living in SD before you were even born. You might be my adopted little brother but you can be kind of a fumb ducker, sometimes.
Cory demonstrates his unbiased reporting by covering this fairly and honestly. Us commenters discuss it in a similar manner, admitting and examining SDDP mistakes, as we always do. But didn’t we all know someone like simpering Steve would show up to act like a 3rd grader saying “Nyah, nyah, nyah!”?
Of course.
I, for one, feel very bad for my good friend Bill, and Messrs. Stan and Tsitrian who will be very lost without the guidance of the Democrat Party. I’ll have to buy Bill’s breakfasts for a while, but the other two fellows can well afford their own.
Only 1/4 of registered Republicans in SD participate in the SD R Primary. Largely, R voters have no motivation to participate in an election until entities like Fox News properly stoke the flames of liberal hate and zeros in on who their enemy is. The Conservative Machine always waits until just before the general election to crescendo their song and messaging on how, “we gotta shut down the baby killers – yet again.”
If every South Dakotan were to register Republican, the math alone shows that decent and sensible folks COULD NOT HELP BUT to assert FAR MORE influence over the crazy rurals and thereby take over the majority of the SDGOP. The math really does work. In fact, it’s the only math that works at all.
Democrat and Republican are just a labels, and even if you take them away, by their fruits (policies, thoughts and feelings) we will always know them – enough to choose the non-radicals over the feral mushbrained babbling fools like Al Novstrup.
Rural state Democrats marriage to a one word label causes great weakness and forfeits great opportunity.
Imagine a South Dakota where EVERY SINGLE negative mailer and negative ad simply claims that a candidate is a “Secret Liberal.”
I feel a bit like John Lennon asking you to imagine something you are totally incapable of imagining (like a better world).
Bottom line: Ideological, political stalemate would be SO MUCH better than this current year long Hate Festival where they demonize and discriminate against anyone who could maybe be called a liberal.
John KC, who said “third” party? I’m talking about creating a second party.
It’s really just the clear D next to the name that justifies the feral folks constant discrimination.
Rich, the Byrne story is mere tabloid nuttiness. The SDDP story is unforced error by my own party with no good side, so spin, no counter-justification. The SDDP chose to participate in a scheme that promised all harm and zero real benefit for its own cause.
Adam’s point is interesting. What would happen if the one-party regime had no Democratic Party to kick around? What would happen to their messaging? How long would we have to tear down the GOP from the inside before we could poke our heads out an act like an honest separate party again?
An alternative Democratic Party which competes within the current Democratic primary process? If so, I find that intriguing, but wouldn’t such a slate merely divide the party for the fall?
It really is interesting.
SD really wouldn’t change that much. We would still have our McCarthy Era style liberal witch hunts, it’s just that the feral folks won’t be able to figure out which local or statewide candidate(s) they are ‘supposed to hate.’
It’s not dishonest to give the people of South Dakota what they want (something they don’t hate). After all, government is supposed to represent the majority of voters, not the minority, and here, moderates and Democrats are both a minority. However, together, they make up the majority of South Dakotans, and if you inject us all into the R Primary, then we will always win.
There is no way to forecast if there might come a day where middle of nowhere Americans will stop preferring the ‘Conservative’ label. So, when in Rome…. there has always been a strong case for doing as the Romans do – to at least some degree.
SDDP just simply does not bridge any gaps in party lines while doing so is the absolute only way to prevent perpetual loss for another decade or two.
At least the folded tent should fit in a medium sized burlap sack.
Wait? Is that legal? Burlap?
Taking over the SDRP would require near-instant mass participation but I’m afraid rural state moderates are not deep, smart nor gutsy enough to participate in any sort of innovative new strategy.
The last time anyone in South Dakota innovated anything in any marketplace, it was in the mass production of cottage cheese something like 80 years ago. ‘South Dakota’ is an antonym for ‘innovation.’
JohnKC, I’m envisioning not a competitor to but a replacement of the SDDP.
Instead of a primary, suppose we collect 3,392 signatures, file to form a new party—the Honest Populists? the Dakota Freedom Party? the Real Dealers? Gryffindor?—and field candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, PUC, and a significant number of Legislative seats. We organize and run hard. On November 5, when the dust clears, we count votes. If the SDDP candidates win more votes in the statewide races than ours, and if they win more seats and more votes in the Legislative races, we stand down. If our new party candidates win more votes, we demand the SDDP’s unconditional surrender and the keys to their SF headquarters. A simple showdown.
Now we could arrange a showdown in the primary as well. Organize a faction of registered Dems to support a slate of insurgent candidates who will challenge SDDP loyalist candidates in the primary. We organize, we win, and then we turn to the party leadership with our general election candidates and say, “Here’s how this campaign is going to run.”
I recognize the danger of forming a new party and dividing the resistance vote, thus ensuring another big Republican victory in November 2020. The plan only works if a new party shows itself to be so much more adept at recruitment, fundraising, campaigning, grabbing headlines, making Republicans sweat, and winning elections than the SDDP that its members would defect en masse in favor of the new, exciting, and effective party.
My suggestion is not even quarter-baked. I invite dissection and ridicule.
But I will suggestion that my proposal, a second party to replace the SDDP, would be more fun, more spiritually satisfying, and more swiftly effective under optimum conditions that trying to hijack and turn the dung-filled elephant boat.
I believe there is a group composed primarily of women in SF who might like your idea. I have no idea if they’d actually go along with it though.
Here’s another advantage to forming a separate party over trying to seize either of the existing parties: we have longer to move and recruit candidates, and we can place them on the ballot by convention. We have until July 1 to create the new party, and then, with “alternative” party status, we have until the second Tuesday of August to convene and nominate candidates for all of the offices I mentioned above.
Debbo, I’d be interested to hear that group’s thoughts.
LEAD has the right idea: no need for open partisan warfare, just recruit candidates and get them elected. Nothing wins like winning.
Maybe they could help an alternative party recruit Scyller Borglum to run its nominee for U.S. Senate. She could liberate herself from the Trumpist yoke that ill fits her, without the shame of carrying the Democratic label but without the limbo status of an independent, who lacks the support of an organized network that a new party can bring.
How about the McGovern Democrats? Or, the GOTV Democrats?
How about The U-Haul Party. Pack one up and get the hell outa there before your children do.
The best way to beat the SDRP is to move away, take over Washington, and cut off the money we liberal states send to support the ingrates. If Repubs are to cheap to tax themselves to pay their own way, they deserve to suffer the wrath of “no mas deniro”.
Watch the whole thing implode is the best thing that could happen. Chubby trumpy’s recession is really the republican recession as they are the ones fueling this debacle. So let’m have it.
“The risk of recession is uncomfortably high and rising. President Donald Trump’s trade war is the proximate cause of what ails the economy. Indeed, if the president follows through on his most recent threat to raise tariffs on Chinese imports, the odds of a downturn between now and this time next year are better than even.
The economy’s growth has already slowed sharply. Real GDP and job growth have throttled way back from this time last year, and unemployment is no longer declining.
The slowdown is due, in part, to the winding down of the deficit-financed tax cuts. The president had argued that the tax cuts, which went mostly to corporations and wealthy households, would significantly lift long-term growth. Not so. The stimulus from the tax cuts has already faded.” https://www.inquirer.com/business/economic-recession-slowdown-trade-war-mark-zandi-20190825.html
In the very near future, like Monday, the markets will drop a bunch and then there will be no turning back. As they say, it is what it is. Just remember 2008 and what you had to do then. There will be no Black savior to right this ship, it will have to wait until we rid ourselves of the trumpist plague that is devouring all. Elections do have consequences, so 2020 will be interestingly cool.
A third party just dilutes you further. The only path I can see for the Dems to having any relevancy whatsoever is to become Republicans. Or maybe focus exclusively on ballot measures.
NPR has a story on the dissolution of the Main Street Republicans caucus in DC. I know y’all will find this really difficult to believe, but there was probably some illegal schmegal stuff going on with a PAC.
_____________________
Chamberlain is the president and CEO and sits on the board of RMSP, but she also runs the group’s superPAC and the group Women2Women. Chamberlain was also listed as the treasurer of the Republican Mainstreet Partnership PAC at the time the memo was written, but documents filed with the Federal Election Commission after the 2018 midterms now list Ose as treasurer — a decision that Ose said was made “out of respect” for RMSP members.
is.gd/sXpjAT
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The article is thorough and detailed, as you’d expect from NPR. The GOP’s Main Street Caucus dissolved this spring so now the few moderate GOPers are in the Tuesday caucus.
I need to go back a day in this thread and defend my friend Leslie. He is a native South Dakotan and has lived here most of his six-plus decades.
Neal, again, I didn’t say third party. I said second party, replacing the current second party.
All I can say is we (South Dakota Democrats) need to hold our party accountable. This seems to be a huge “oops” as far as I am concerned. Hard to talk about corruption on the part of the opposition with issues like this making state and national news.
The thing is, David, I don’t think there was any corruption in the SDDP, not like what Republicans did with EB-5 and GEAR UP, not like Noem and Rhoden each putting two kids (or kid-in-law) in state jobs during the first couple months of their terms, not like the daily cronyism that is state government since Janklow took power in 1979. I don’t think anyone in the SDDP got rich from failing to report the Clinton money transfers. The SDDP leadership and the party as a whole gained nothing from the whole affair. It was just a stupid gamble, promising no gain and all loss, and they failed to do their paperwork properly.
But it’s a story that leaves Democrats no room to cheer. It’s not worth offering a defense. It just makes Democrats look incompetent. As you say, it is a big “oops” with no upside that gets in the way of speaking with any authority on public issues.
Cory, agreed.
I just imagine what the SDDP could have done to develop a bigger voice and message, in South Dakota, with that $2.5 million dollars.
I just can’t see how the SDDP should ever push that kind of money to any Presidential candidate – EVER. This state is just far too broken to be giving so much resources to a national movement.
Adam, could a second party devote itself exclusively to state and local elections and leave it to Presidential and Congressional candidates to handle all of their own fundraising and campaigning? Could the state-focused party coordinate with such candidates without triggering FEC reporting requirements?
Ya know, Cory, I really like the idea of a more state-centered moderate political party.
For a while now, I have felt like the Black Hills deserves its own party as it has a near-totally different economy and lifestyle than the rest of the state. A more local-focused political party is perhaps ‘long overdue’ in/for the Black Hills.
So why not also a state political party aiming for the hearts and minds of ALL non-Republicans in SD? We all, most certainly do, have a lot in common!
Any state Democratic Party is, truly, obligated to serve it’s national organization, and this creates a HARD sticking point for conservative rural culture. So, we’ve got to find a way around this problem.
I can’t see even one gosh darn reason how/why a new state centered moderate political party wouldn’t help instead of hurt the voice of reason in South Dakota.
I reject the term “moderate,” only because I don’t think it meaningfully distinguishes a new party from the current opposition party in South Dakota. The SDDP has not been uniquely or leadingly or effectively liberal or radical.
That said, I can live with “moderate” used to contrast most South Dakotans with the radicals in charge of the Republican Party. Radical theocrats, radical Trumpists, radical opportunists, radical cronies and corruption-mongers. How about “The Reasonable Party”? “The Rational Party”? “The Realistic Party”? Anything with an R at the front for some bonus brand-joggling.
In South Dakota, if state politics were a stalemate between Republicans vs. Everyone Else, it would be a super-massive improvement.
I think the Rural Republican voters are radicals and everyone else is more moderate.
I am sort of partial to calling it the New Republican Party, Everyone Else Party or the South Dakota State Party.
Thinking along your lines, Adam:
The Vocal Majority?
The Anti-Party Party? (Advantage: abbreviates as APP, like the cool things we put on our phones!)
The Real Republicans?
The Roosevelt Republicans? (let members debate whether we mean Teddy or Franklin D)
The Action Party? (“Action, not words”… “All A’s—good for your report card, good for South Dakota!”… “Get some Action!”)
The Groucho Marxists? (“The party for people who wouldn’t belong to any party that would have them as members!”)
The Alternative Party? (nah—alt-right makes “alt” problematic)
The BFH Party? (“The Party your dad would use to solve big problems”)
The All-American Party? (“For ALL Americans”)
The Balance Party? The Check & Balance Party? The Team of Rivals? The Next Big Thing?
Whatever the party, it has to be dedicated to solving problems. Say what South Dakota needs—good schools, good roads, good wages, good government—and then elect people dedicated to no ideology but simply the practical provision of those needs for South Dakota.
Starting a new political party in South Dakota is not possible until the people of South Dakota rid themselves of the existing republicans pretending to be democrats. These are the worst of the worst in that they claim they believe in democratic issues while kneeling to the republicans at every turn. If the people of South Dakota are determined to continue voting against their best interests on almost every level of government, there is no reason to oppose the republicans at all. The republican elite who control this state are committed to maintaining their control over it’s people and keeping us under their thumbs while they continue to bleed this state dry of all our resources. To start a new party would be a commitment to throw out the republicans posing as democrats and of course, the republicans. Once the rats have been eliminated we may have a chance to lose the rating as one of the top ten most corrupt states in the nation and begin serving the people rather than the criminal elite few.
Throwing people out of a new movement. The focus needs to be bringing people in, people who want genuine opposition to the SD status quo and honest, transparent, effective fundraising, organizing, and campaigning.
It would also help to ignore the DNC and national issues, on which our efforts are mostly wasted, and focus entirely on South Dakota issues.
This is dedicated to all them there trolls that pop up here accusing HRC of every crime in the book and getting busted for lying.
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/01/doj-investigation-hillary-clinton-ending
Former AG and Keebler Elf jeff Sessions started this investigation of HRC 2 years ago and the investigator found zero crimes HRC commited in the State Department, on Benghazi, Uranium 1 and Clinton Foundation.
I’d love to say this should be the end of the conspiracy theories, but I know wingnuts better.
Mike, the misogynists have hated her since day 1.
She’s the uppity woman who was not going to sit home and bake cookies, who had the nerve to run what could have been a good healthcare solution, who was smarter than them, knew it and was proud of it, who believed women were At Least as capable as men.
Every small man has hated her passionately and the small men still do. She exposed their smallness, their weakness, their façade.
Cory, I’ve thought a lot about this, too. I think a Democratic-Libertarian Party is what we need. One that defends common South Dakotans and other Americans from the excesses of businesses (that’s what Dems do) and the excesses of government (that’s what Libertarians say they do). This is not a Rand Paul organization, but one that would be rational.
Willy, I’d be happy to see any coalition of sensible, truly liberty-minded activists and candidates challenge the corrupt, authoritarian, one-party regime that is stifling South Dakota’s economy and culture.