Today a jury convicted Bill Janklow on all counts (including manslaughter) and he has announced his resignation link.
This leaves the Republican party shorthanded in SD. John Thune recently gave his House seat to Janklow (in 2002) to run for Tim Johnson’s Senate seat. Thune currently plans to run against Daschle in 2004 but that would force the Republican party to run either an unknown or weak candidate for the house seat or to run Rounds (the current Governor) for the House seat (and a little-known candidate for the Governor’s mansion).
Out of 4 offices to fill (2 Senate, 1 House, 1 Governor), the Republicans want to win 3 (Johnson’s term will last 'til 2008) but may end up with only 1 (if Daschle keeps his seat and an unknown Democrat takes the house seat) and they only have 2 candidates (Thune and Rounds). OTOH, if the Republicans punt (run Thune for House in the special election and in November and run a weak candidate against Daschle), Thune can win the House seat without much trouble and the balance stays as it is (but Daschle stays around until at least 2010).
I posted another thread in MPSIMS announcing the news of his conviction but I don’t want to take that thread off-topic.
I think the Republicans should punt and run Thune for House in June and November but I don’t believe that’s what they’ll do. Either way, the conviction and resignation forces the GOP’s hand and denies them the element of surprise in the next election.
I think that the Republicans are liable to end up with only 1 statewide seat starting June 2004, what do you think?
Would it be fair to restate the question as “Can Thune or any other Republican realistically beat Daschle”? If that’s a Yes, then that’s what they should probably try. If it’s a No, then your Plan B sounds right.
I agree. I think Daschle wins over Thune in a walk. If the Republcians want to grab a statewide office in South Dakota the best bet is to have Thune take back that House seat.
np_complete, I could not find a news story about Thune planning to run for Daschle’s Senate seat, just speculation (which should be answered by the end of January, according to this Dave Kranz column from November. I don’t know, it was a rough campaign between Thune and Johnson last year, and they were pretty much two incumbents running for the same seat. I don’t think it’s a lock that Thune will try to take on Daschle, I think it will end up pretty much the same as last time, with a wider margin of votes to Daschle.
I read in today’s Argus Leader coverage that Janklow’s Democratic challenger, Stephanie Herseth, has already announced she will run for the open House seat in the special election. I was not in the state, but did watch the races from afar, and one thing that stood out in the race between Herseth and Janklow was the cordiality (sp?), especially compared to the Johnson/Thune race. So, Stephanie’s face is already out there, as I recall, she did well for someone so young, and a lot of people have a positive view of her. I think she stands a good chance of taking the seat, and giving South Dakota (a very Republican state) a full Democratic Congressional delegation. God, I wish I were still there, it could be fun!
In that article, former Senator Larry Pressler sure sounds like he would like to run on the GOP side, but those rumblings seem to happen every so often, as I recall. Who knows? There’s a lot of young, up-and-comers on both sides in the state, many of whom might like to test the waters in this election.
***Disclaimer: This message written by a former Daschle staffer, so I always hope for the best for the state, but Thune kept getting elected anyway.
From what I understood, it was a basically a given that Thune would run against Daschle in the next election, he surely wasn’t going to run against Janklow–not and remain a good standing member of the SD Republican party. Not to mention, the fact that Janklow would have had a wiped the floor with Thune if he did try.
I suspect that now that the representative seat is open, Thune will run for it instead. He’ll probably win it as well over Herseth. I would like to see Herseth win, but I really doubt it. The Republicans will be going all out to win the seat (to prevent that “full Democratic Congressional delegation” and with Thune’s previous service in Congress, I think he will be a shoo in.
I think that Thune will not run against Daschle. Thune can not afford to lose. I think he should tell the President and/or the Republican party to back off and then run for the House. I think he would win.
Daschle keeps on winning elections because 1] he is really a good senator giving great constituent service and 2] the republicans can’t find a good candidate. The last guy who ran against Daschle couldn’t find Washington on a map, much less know what to do when he gets there.
Janklow got what he deserves and the State of SD will be better off without him in office. The next election will be interesting.
My wife wants to run for the interim House seat, just to see if it is possible to have the job and not bow down to the lobbyists, special interests, and party bosses. Making it to more votes than Janklow should not be a problem.
I’m not from South Dakota, but I follow the politics there pretty closely.
South Dakota has a pretty long-standing tradition of selecting young up-and-comers for the House seat and then graduating them to the Senate shortly thereafter–Daschle and Johnson both did it that way.
Thune looks to me like he’s ready to step up, and he’s owed big time by the White House. He was reputedly asked to run for the Senate last time by Bush himself (sorry, no cite). Daschle and Thune were statistically even in the polls this past summer. The buzz I regularly get here in D.C. is that Thune’s campaign never stopped collecting money after the 2002 election.
The Democrats seem to be fairly happy with running Herseth again for the House, which might give her a recognition edge in the special election should Thune sit it out.
One thing which isn’t likely to change is the fact that nine percent of the state population is American Indian, and they will vote for a rez dog over anyone Republican… if they bother to vote at all. The Sioux aren’t going to forget that it was George Bush who tried to take away funding for their drinking water supply, and it was Daschle and Johnson who busted their asses getting it back for them.
If you ask me, the safe Republican play is to find someone “groomable,” run that candidate in the special election as well as the general one regardless of the outcome. At the same time, funnel as much money as possible to Thune’s campaign, but keep it boring. It’s too early to tell for sure, but it looks to me like the bell is tolling for Senate Democrats nationwide. Knocking off Daschle would be the icing on the cake.
Though I haven’t seen any announcement from Thune that he would run for Senate in 2004, I believe that it had been his plan since his loss in 2002.
I hadn’t considered Pressler as a potential opponent to Daschle, but I don’t think that he would be as effective a candidate as Thune.
In any case, I suspect that the RNC orchestrated Thune’s challenge to Johnson in 2002 (and the surrender of his seat to Janklow). If that is the case, I expect that the RNC and the White House will try to pressure Thune into running against Daschle in 2004. If that’s the case, I hope that the RNC breaks its teeth on SD and that Herseth and Daschle win in 2004.
Honestly a reliably Republican (in Presidential races) state like SD can hardly afford to lose a prestigous position like Senate Minority/Majority leader. If Thune were to beat Daschle, the state can move to the back of the line for any federal funds and to the front of the line for troop deployments.
(I have to apologize for overlooking Representative Janklow and his office in my above post regarding the water project funds. Janklow was the sole Representative in the House who advocated restoration of those funds. Had he said one sideways word about it, or even said nothing at all about it, nothing would have happened.
People in Indian affairs generally don’t have many good things to say about “Wild Bill” Janklow, but that was a stand-up thing to do, and his support never wavered, even after the accident.)
