It's a wild, wild life

In the aftermath of the Novak column on bloggers, Is it just me, or are politics so active to the point of being hyperactive lately?

Not just the normal stuff that hums along in the off season. This used to be when State Party Directors would go on vacation or change jobs. They better cancel those plans - because we aren't getting an off season this year. Maybe I'm being hypersensitive tonight, because I'm still tired from my weekend of moving. (yes, I'm kvetching). But I really don't think so.

First off, the campaign against John Thune has yet to end. After Abdnor, and for the most part, up until Thune and Governor Janklow ran for open congressional seats on separate occasions, Republicans had taken it in the shorts on nearly every attempt to oust an incumbent in a federal office. Volk, Frankenfeld, Timmer, Haar, Berkhout, Schmidt, etc.

The list is long, and the string of losses year... after year... after year would really tend to dampen one's spirit. But, we'd suck it up and keep a stiff upper lip and move on to prepare for the next election. But this last year - when we still lost against an incumbent of only several months, we finally won a contested race against an incumbent. (Yay for the home team!)

But now, the campaign has yet to end.

I'm not going to go on about the permanent campaign, because I think it's symptomatic. It's not just that race. It's all of them.

Look at the Argus Leader - Dave Kranz has enough material to write columns three times a week. Bob Mercer's column practically takes up a page or two every time it's written. Terry Woster is writing a new "expose"' on something every few weeks. Mt. Blogmore is freaking out of control with the issues going all over the place.

To me, it seems there's no respite.

Joel Rosenthal is writing that we need to get our congressional candidate in line. Jeff Partridge in Rapid City is publicly looking at planning his run (I don't think his site ever came down). Jarrod Johnson who lost a primary last year has been going around to GOP events making noise about taking on Bryce Healy.

And then we can keep moving down the line - The MAINstream Moderate Coalition really kicked this stuff into high gear. And several legislators like Bill Napoli, Ted Klaudt and Jim Lintz kicked right back.

And then there are others. It was just a few weeks back (Monday, July 11th) that I got after Senator Clarence Kooistra about government meddling and other issues. Well, the Senator is in the newspaper again. This weekend he’s taking on the entire retire-rehire system and the Board of Regents rehiring Board of Regents ED Tad Perry.

Frank Kloucek has been in the media about livestock confinement, and his take on eating a steak.

What I'm trying to say, is that all of this seems amped up to an unusual level so early in the game. Nobody (with the execption of the AG) has even opened up a camapign office yet - and Larry only did it to send out some letters. But it's all we see in the news and especially the blogs.

Is it just my perception because I'm sitting in the thick of it? I'm not complaining mind you - it gives me oodles and oodles of things to talk about. But I'm wondering what the public at large thinks. Are they going to be burnt out before they even get started with a South Dakota Gubernatorial year?

It's one phenomena I think has not been discussed with regards to writing a political blog because it's so new - if the public gets 'political fatigue' early, are we to blame? In the campaign, you can see it as it heads into the home stretch. But since we never let it die - are we going to cause political fatigue at an earlier time?

Just wondering. A little food for thought.

I'm going to sharpen up my pencil so I can write some more about politics.

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I'm still really pumped up about my upcoming 10 questions. Hopefully I'll have them by next week - this will be one that should be talked about.