Rich Mittelstedt: Meaningless Political Rhetoric 101
As announced in the Watertown Public Opinion on Saturday, Rich Mittelstedt of Watertown announced his candidacy for a District 5 State House. As part of his resume, he noted that he was formerly a debate coach for the high school before he started working for SDEA. Clearly he must have been good at it, because his announcement is well written without the clutter of providing details:
It reminds me of the guy my wife ran against when she first ran for school board. He was relatively well known in the community, but he didn't do squat in his race except put out the worst press release I'd ever seen. It was so full of stupid meaningless rhetoric it was almost infuriating. Aside from noting that he'd been on a lot of boards, he spoke of "implementing win-win strategies." It was terrible.
As a former educator, my wife managed to have a pretty good hook on the race (in which we spent next to nothing) simply talking about her background in the classroom and her administrative experience in education. And the opposition came back with mumbo jumbo about paradigms - it was a bad strategy for him. We pulled out the win on election day.
My advice for Mr. Mittelstedt? If he were a Republican, I'd tell him to talk specifics. If he keeps saying "we need innovative strategies" somebody is going to put him on th spot and ask him "What strategies do we need? What would you do?" And he isn't going to have an answer.
But then again, he's the Democratic candidate. My bad. Go right ahead and keep doing what you are doing. And we'll see you at the debates this fall.
Just as a footnote, Not to pick on Rich exclusively. There's guys and gals on my side of the aisle who do it too. But this was a perfect example to show why goofy rhetoric is bad.
Otherwise, I would welcome Rich to the races, and congratulate him for trying to be part of the solution.
Former Watertown High School teacher and forensics coach Rich Mittelstedt has announced his candidacy for a District 5 State House of Representatives seat on the Democratic ticket.Read it all here. "We need innovative strategies to strengthen South Dakota's economy" Good gosh, that sounds like something I'd write when I had a whole lot of nothing to go on.
and...
In his announcement, Mittelstedt said the legislature needs to practice common sense governance.
“We need more local control on local issues and a practical approach to economic development and education,” he said. “We need innovative strategies to strengthen South Dakota's economy, not political antics to get headlines.”
It reminds me of the guy my wife ran against when she first ran for school board. He was relatively well known in the community, but he didn't do squat in his race except put out the worst press release I'd ever seen. It was so full of stupid meaningless rhetoric it was almost infuriating. Aside from noting that he'd been on a lot of boards, he spoke of "implementing win-win strategies." It was terrible.
As a former educator, my wife managed to have a pretty good hook on the race (in which we spent next to nothing) simply talking about her background in the classroom and her administrative experience in education. And the opposition came back with mumbo jumbo about paradigms - it was a bad strategy for him. We pulled out the win on election day.
My advice for Mr. Mittelstedt? If he were a Republican, I'd tell him to talk specifics. If he keeps saying "we need innovative strategies" somebody is going to put him on th spot and ask him "What strategies do we need? What would you do?" And he isn't going to have an answer.
But then again, he's the Democratic candidate. My bad. Go right ahead and keep doing what you are doing. And we'll see you at the debates this fall.
Just as a footnote, Not to pick on Rich exclusively. There's guys and gals on my side of the aisle who do it too. But this was a perfect example to show why goofy rhetoric is bad.
Otherwise, I would welcome Rich to the races, and congratulate him for trying to be part of the solution.
Comments
dex
Besides, "they just do what their biggest contributor or lobbying group tells them to do when they arrive in Pierre" is as cliche'd as it gets. There's more influence from their party on how to vote than there is anything else.
Pete