Now that the Senate has gotten rid of South Dakota’s worst attorney general ever, we the people have the chance to elect a decent human being to replace one of our worst Governors ever.
Jamie Smith, Democratic candidate for Governor, challenged Kristi Noem’s hateful, divisive rhetoric and says we need to welcome everyone in South Dakota:
Production note: Smith appears to have shot a lot of this video at the Sioux Falls Pride events on Saturday. His team put this video together and released it yesterday. That’s pretty fast turnaround for a good marketing product. Maybe that’s why Kristi Noem needs to cannibalize her state staff to bulk up her campaign crew: she’s worried Jamie Smith can beat her on video production and humanity!
Great work and message!
Jamie’s message is SPOT ON! Spread Love & Respect across South Dakota. We need a Governor who will work hard for every citizen and I believe that will be Jamie Smith.
Powerful ad. “Love” it!
Ahh, I believe him<3
Mr. H, I hold you largely responsible for the failure of amendment C, as well as losing Mr. Ravnsborg as AG. And I know your ample endorsement for Mr. Smith is going to help get the lovable man elected. Thank you and your loyal readers will continue to do our part to contaminate the state. With love that is.
Jamie Smith is just enough of an offbeat, counter candidate to have a chance if Mrs. Noem blows up….the chaos in the Republican Party doesn’t help her, the controversy over abortion does.
Cory..I have one more comment here…..the clock is ticking on when Mrs. Noem will call Jamie Smith a Communist. My bet is in her acceptance address at this weekend’s Republican Convention. It is a sure bet she will use the word Communists or Communist. She knows her audience.
All Mammal, thank you for the vote of confidence! I wish I could claim credit for the failure of Amendment C and the success of the effort to impeach Ravnsborg… but the thing is, both of those victories arose mostly from Republicans doing the right thing. A majority of Republican primary voters voted against Amendment C. Yesterday, a majority of Senate Republicans voted to remove Jason Ravnsborg from office. I wasn’t counting on either result.
Early in his gubernatorial campaign, Jamie Smith spoke of having the quiet support of a number of Republican legislators. His success depends on traditional Democratic get-out-the-vote, but it also depends on those quiet Republican allies following through with their support and quietly—or maybe not so quietly—urging their followers to vote for Smith as well.
I am willing to accept that a majority of Senate Republicans were willing to boot Ravnsborg because he did bad things and deserved to be booted. But I will also acknowledge that booting him was made easier by the fact that Ravnsborg had little remaining political value. He was a crappy AG—even legislators who thought maybe Ravnsborg could have charged Denny Sanford or dug up evidence of Kristi Noem’s corruption probably recognized he stood a good chance of botching any prosecution. The primary may have signaled that his efforts to rally delegates had failed, as did his inside whispers before the primary and his public announcement afterward that he would not seek the nomination. Thus, Senators walking into the trial could see Jason had no political clout or patronage to offer.
Kristi Noem has lots of political clout, patronage, and cash to offer. Holding her accountable, saying publicly that she has done bad things, and urging people to vote her out of office puts disgruntled Republicans in great peril. Even if they succeed and turn out the extra 10% of the GOP electorate that could provide Smith with a historic upset victory, Noem would still be around, and mad, and still able to rally allies and some fast cash (more speeches, more appearances on Fox News) that she could pour into the 2024 primaries to take revenge on anyone who didn’t support her. But Noem could also take some of those traitors down with her in this election.
It was hard enough to get a majority of Republicans to do the easy right thing and boot Ravnsborg. Even with all of Jamie Smith’s good qualities, it will be harder to get a minority of Republicans to turn out effectively to vote Noem out of office.
Arlo, yes, Jamie Smith does have some special sauce to put on this election burger. The above video, showing the big burly guy hugging people, shows some of that sauce. That won’t stop Kristi from using the same old slogans and labels she used to fight off Billie Sutton’s challenge. Sure, she’ll mention communism or socialism or some such easily digestible nonsense for her base and the inattentive, casual voters. Smith can’t touch her base, so that’s no big deal. He’ll just need to counterprogram the messages to the inattentive voters who aren’t invested in ideology with better negative attacks. And he can swing a much harder stick against Noem—nepotism, celebrity-seeking, out-of-state money, constant travel, misuse of state plane, misuse of state troopers as personal bodyguards on out-of-state campaign trips, losses in court—than any of the vague, non-specific MAGA slogans she’ll try recycling on him. For every huggy video he puts out (and I do like the above huggy video, which combines showing Jamie as a lovable coach/father figure and reminding us of Noem’s unloving, un-Christian behavior), he’ll need to put out an attack video blowing Noem out of the water for specific malfeasance and failure to govern.
Cory..agee…the Democrats need to come out slugging and show their heart. No more rope-a-dope and mumbling.
Mr. H- I don’t underestimate your powerful influence. I have a strong suspicion your reports are the other side’s guilty pleasure on the down-low. Your ensemble of motley commentators provide the deep-dishy goods South Dakotans can’t resist. Whether they love DFP or hate it- they need it. As a whole, DFP does exactly as intended, reports facts and allows ideas and opinions to be exchanged.
Without access to what you provide, those (R)s may not have cast the righteous vote had they not had access to unclouded journalism, as well as their peers’/constituents’ unadulterated reactions to your exposés.
That influence goes viral when your readers spread the truth with vim and vigor.
I might go so far as to suggest you display a disclaimer: warning! It is a crime and could potentially result in injury or death to read DFP while operating a vehicle or machinery.
You know, for standard AGs who need obey no law when they hear DFP whispering to them, “Extra! Extra!”
It’s okay with me if I haven’t convinced you because your modesty is endearing.