The award for Best Campaign Photo in a Legislative Race (so far) goes to Louise Snodgrass, candidate for District 7 House:
That’s not posing; Snodgrass uses that axe for real work on the 40-acre sustainable produce and agri-tourism farm she manages (yeah, a real small farm, the kind of diversified economic operation that could be a model for other South Dakota farmers to break free of the polluting, unhealthy, coronavirus-fragile ag-industrial complex and make food for their neighbors).
The axe represents Snodgrass’s commitment to chopping down the biggest drags on South Dakota’s economic development—the rapacious, oppressive, and stagnacious (pugnaciously defending stagnation?) attitudes of our elected leaders that make young people seek opportunity elsewhere:
I am seeing our land & natural resources ropped to shreds and left rotten for future generations for quick profit gains.
I am seeing the indigenous nations of SD’s sovereignty threatened and their people silenced by SD’s current leadership.
I am seeing my community duped into believing more of the same is an okay thing.
I am seeing young, brilliant minds being driven out by the regressive legislaton & leadership that does not reflect their forward-thinking values [Louise Snodgrass, campaign Tweets, 2020.06.17].
Snodgrass’s Republican opponents, incumbent Rep. Tim Reed and hoping-to-return former legislator Larry Tidemann, can make the argument that they helped chop out some of the regressive rot by beating radical right-wing ideologue Rep. Doug Post in the primary. But Postian ideologues in Pierre have never outnumbered the Establishment Republicans who poured money into Tidemann’s challenge not to reform South Dakota but just to kick a few crazies out of their close-knit good-old-boys club. Establishment Republicans like Reed and Tidemann will kick right-wing radicals in the pants when they stand between club members and election, but once they get to Pierre, the Establishment gives us more of the same that Snodgrass sees driving aspiring workers and entrepreneurs away.
Post would have been an easier opponent for Snodgrass, because he more obviously represents the anti-equality, anti-justice inclinations of South Dakota’s one-party regime. But Reed and Tidemann, both incumbents of the good-old-boys club if not both of the Legislature, represent the deeper rot of the Republican Party, the constant reversion to the way things have always been that prevents an inclusive quest for the way things could be better. Keep chopping, Louise!
Blatant sexism it is, to have an attractive young woman like that posing with a Pulaski. I like her name a lot also.
grudznick approves.
Thank you, Cory! I’ll gladly accept this award (so far), hahaha!
I am excited to get my hands dirty and work alongside so many dedicated South Dakotans in moving our state forward.
-Louise Snodgrass
If you are so “fortunate” as to sit in a room with Jeff Monroe or Fred Deutsch or Jim Bolin and try to pass sane legislation, you will get your hands, and much of the rest of you, dirty.
538 writes of decades of GOP voter suppression. Ms. Snodgrass, feel free to chop that up to kindling as well!
is.gd/UUmwin
Good national news from 538:
“It’s too early to say that Democrats can take back the Senate, but if the national environment remains this favorable for Democrats, they’ll certainly stand a pretty good chance of regaining control in November.”
Louise, Corey, friends:
The 2020 Aspen Ideas Fest is live now, and all week at 6pm CDT, June 28- July 2.
Free. https://aspenideas.splashthat.com/media
Dragging old guy Tidemann out of retirement is a desperate move on Republicans’ s part. They ran him because they knew that Post would be beaten by either one of our candidates. Bill Adamson is also running for House from District 7. Post’s seat would then go to a Democrat and the Republicans couldn’t have that. And you are correct Cory that the three Republicans are complacent and will maintain the status quo. They are entrenched. Louise and Bill must attract Independent voters if they are to win. And that is what the Brookings Dems are focusing on. Maybe Louise should take that ax everywhere she campaigns and we should get Bill a shovel to bury the bad legislation that they chop up.
Mary Perpich
Brookings Dems chairperson
I like that imagery Mary. ☺
This makes me happy!!
Louise already has the vote of this Independent. She’s the only local Democrat I’m voting for in November.
I will bullet vote FOR Louise. We need more candidates like Louise who actually stand FOR something.
Make this election about new management. If the person on your ballot has been in the Legislature, don’t vote for that person.