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burnunitHerseth wins.
Stephanie Herseth became just the 2nd woman elected to Congress in my home state (the first also won a special election, in 1938). She fills the vacated seat of convicted manslaughterer Bill Janklow. She has a tough road ahead, because she has to go to DC, get sworn in today, start committee work and somehow plan a campaign for the general election in November. With the amount of money the GOP spent on this special election (over $2M), it's obvious that South Dakota is a House battleground in the fall. The presidency is a total loss, that's Bush-Cheney country from Camp Crook to Elk Point. So the fasc...errr...Republicans are going to concentrate on securing their congressional majority. So they'll bring every right wing and scare tactic to bear that they can.
The spin will almost certainly look like this:
1) Herseth is a woman (duh. finally!)
2) Herseth is a liberal (not really, she supported the Iraq travesty)
3) Herseth started campaigning as soon as she took office
4) Herseth isn't spending enough time campaigning
(3 & 4 are going to happen, you watch. The first charge will be because the timeline is so short, of COURSE she'd have to campaign right away. The second will be because her opponent will start his campaign today, and since he's not away in Washington doing the nation's business, someone will be able to spin that she's just going back to be with her Georgetown cronies. Never mind that Janklow was just swimming upstream to join his buddies in the Potomac swamp... and Diedrich is fundamentally a political lightweight who should have stayed in the State House, or stayed with the Soybean Association for that matter)
5) Herseth is young (which means she's one of the few people of my generation who decided to stay in the state, a noble act given the proven flight of skills and brains- I stand witness to that!)
6) Herseth is inexperienced (So were Tim Johnson and John Thune, two men the voters didn't mind making Representative back in the 80s and 90s)
I cannot underscore how important the coming election is for the nation at large. South Dakota's very conservative and should be ignored vis a vis the presidency, they would vote for the reanimated corpse of Barry Goldwater or the Robot Nixon if they had to. But they have a habit of electing moderate to liberal members of Congress. And incumbents in South Dakota tend to stay very long. For example, Larry Pressler is a hack, and he served for something like 18 years in the senate.
Electing a full spread of Democrats to Congress from South Dakota can lock up moderate/liberal-leaning seats for a couple decades. In a closely divided congress (which is exactly what we have), that can mean a LOT. If we can stem the tide now, the "moment" will be lost- for a "Senator Thune" bid (they want him to supplant the "evil" Tom Daschle so badly they can taste it) for example- and if that moment coincides with a national return to sanity in the election of John Kerry, we could be on the path to decades of good government.
There may be less than 800,000 people in South Dakota, which means it's ridiculous that they have such pull on a nation of 300 million. Well, there's like 500,000 in Wyoming, and they gave us Cheney, so nyah. Anyway, ridiculous or not, if you care about this country, you better get to know something about Congresswoman Herseth. It wouldn't hurt to send her money or volunteer and probably you should check in on Daschle. It wouldn't hurt to get to know Tim Johnson, either. He's one of about 7 in the entire congress who has a son on active military duty. Brooks Johnson is in the immediate theater of the Iraqi war (there's also Marilyn Musgrave whose son is in the Navy, I believe he's in the utterly unenviable position of serving on a submarine, Akin, Hunter, Schrock, Wilson, and Kline.)
Know your Dakotans, and we'll build a better future!
Stephanie Herseth became just the 2nd woman elected to Congress in my home state (the first also won a special election, in 1938). She fills the vacated seat of convicted manslaughterer Bill Janklow. She has a tough road ahead, because she has to go to DC, get sworn in today, start committee work and somehow plan a campaign for the general election in November. With the amount of money the GOP spent on this special election (over $2M), it's obvious that South Dakota is a House battleground in the fall. The presidency is a total loss, that's Bush-Cheney country from Camp Crook to Elk Point. So the fasc...errr...Republicans are going to concentrate on securing their congressional majority. So they'll bring every right wing and scare tactic to bear that they can.
The spin will almost certainly look like this:
1) Herseth is a woman (duh. finally!)
2) Herseth is a liberal (not really, she supported the Iraq travesty)
3) Herseth started campaigning as soon as she took office
4) Herseth isn't spending enough time campaigning
(3 & 4 are going to happen, you watch. The first charge will be because the timeline is so short, of COURSE she'd have to campaign right away. The second will be because her opponent will start his campaign today, and since he's not away in Washington doing the nation's business, someone will be able to spin that she's just going back to be with her Georgetown cronies. Never mind that Janklow was just swimming upstream to join his buddies in the Potomac swamp... and Diedrich is fundamentally a political lightweight who should have stayed in the State House, or stayed with the Soybean Association for that matter)
5) Herseth is young (which means she's one of the few people of my generation who decided to stay in the state, a noble act given the proven flight of skills and brains- I stand witness to that!)
6) Herseth is inexperienced (So were Tim Johnson and John Thune, two men the voters didn't mind making Representative back in the 80s and 90s)
I cannot underscore how important the coming election is for the nation at large. South Dakota's very conservative and should be ignored vis a vis the presidency, they would vote for the reanimated corpse of Barry Goldwater or the Robot Nixon if they had to. But they have a habit of electing moderate to liberal members of Congress. And incumbents in South Dakota tend to stay very long. For example, Larry Pressler is a hack, and he served for something like 18 years in the senate.
Electing a full spread of Democrats to Congress from South Dakota can lock up moderate/liberal-leaning seats for a couple decades. In a closely divided congress (which is exactly what we have), that can mean a LOT. If we can stem the tide now, the "moment" will be lost- for a "Senator Thune" bid (they want him to supplant the "evil" Tom Daschle so badly they can taste it) for example- and if that moment coincides with a national return to sanity in the election of John Kerry, we could be on the path to decades of good government.
There may be less than 800,000 people in South Dakota, which means it's ridiculous that they have such pull on a nation of 300 million. Well, there's like 500,000 in Wyoming, and they gave us Cheney, so nyah. Anyway, ridiculous or not, if you care about this country, you better get to know something about Congresswoman Herseth. It wouldn't hurt to send her money or volunteer and probably you should check in on Daschle. It wouldn't hurt to get to know Tim Johnson, either. He's one of about 7 in the entire congress who has a son on active military duty. Brooks Johnson is in the immediate theater of the Iraqi war (there's also Marilyn Musgrave whose son is in the Navy, I believe he's in the utterly unenviable position of serving on a submarine, Akin, Hunter, Schrock, Wilson, and Kline.)
Know your Dakotans, and we'll build a better future!