South Dakotans for Honest and Open Government launches assault on Governor Rounds

In an e-mail purporting to be from "Mayor Rounds" the political group "South Dakotans for Honest and Open Government" is announcing a fundraising campaign to put one of two ads on the air which appear to be the political season's first attack campaign ads.

The first one, "the airplane" attacks the Governor and asserts that he's sending half of the government contracts to out of state companies.


The second "newscaster" type ad as pictured below goes after a theme of "What has Governor Rounds done for you?"

This ad picks on three main issues; the purchase of a new state airplane, the construction of a new residence, and supposedly having three positions on abortion.

As a long time political operative, they got my attention. But I'm also not so naive to think that these are going to play well in South Dakota. The tone of them is sarcastic, and is easily recognizable as a negative directed attack on the Governor.

It's an intense first salvo at a time when many South Dakotans are still trying to figure out who the other candidate is. While Billion has yet to kick off much of his media campaign, these are going to hit the airwaves in competition.

Negative advertising works, but one of the results is that it drives voter turnout down. In this case, with Billion probably having a low name identification among voters at this point, driving the voter turnout down is probably not in his best interest - in fact it's going to benefit the incumbent, Governor Rounds.

Stay tuned for more on this one.

Update - yes I know the movies won't open right by clicking on the links. It must be a protection that forces you to go through their website here.

If you copy the following text and paste it into your address bar, that should work:
http://honestandopengov.netfast.org/images/Rounds.mov for commerical 1 and
http://honestandopengov.netfast.org/images/Rounds2.mov for commerical 2

Comments

Anonymous said…
Must lbe a liberal version of the "Mayor of garage logic" over in MN.

WOW! Can a death penalty ad be far behind?
Anonymous said…
I thought the Gov's mansion was paid for with private funds ?

Am I wrong ?
Anonymous said…
This is the only way we can get OPEN Government from Mayor Rounds.
Anonymous said…
It's a shame that the governor's main accomplishments are:

1) building a new governor's mansion;

2) buying himself a new plane and using it for personal and political business and only repaying the taxpayers after he got caught - using the "governor's fund" secret slush fund to do the repaying and not paying income taxes on slush fund money he used for personal expenses;

3) getting the law changed so his brothers could open a distillery.

It seems if there's not something in it for Rounds, he can't get anything done.

And the whole HB 1215 and now the Page death penalty matter, he talks out of both sides of his mouth - either unable or unwilling to be a leader.

Time to elect Billion for some real leadership, instead of self-serving rubber-spined Rounds!
Haggs said…
I'm not a fan of attack ads, but these bring up a lot of good points. Rounds hasn't been very open in many of his decisions.

But, PP, you bring up an interesting point about the average voter not having a handle on who Billion is yet. Would it be better for them to hold off on these ads until Billion get a little more well-known?
Anonymous said…
This sounds like a Hildebrand operation. Remember South Dakotans United to Protect Social Security, and a number of paper-tiger other "organizations" to "support" various things (fill in the blank).
Anonymous said…
annon 3:04
I guess it is ok for the governor to have other governors over to the mansion and have sewer back up. Nothing says SD pride like smell of sewer and some mold on the wall. To my understanding no Tax $ were spent. So what is the problm?
Anonymous said…
There should be no problem with the governor's mansion (actually a house, not a mansion, but I digress). It was paid for by donated dollars. And it's only Rounds' home as long as he is governor. When the next governor is elected, he/she will reside in it. Good grief, using this as an issue is showing the Dem's desperation. Are the libs going to begrudge BIllion's living in it if he would surprisingly happen to win? Of cousre not! And the old governor's house could hardly be given away, so it clearly was not a prize piece of real estate and needed replacing. Get over it!!
Anonymous said…
No public money, correct. Special interest money, correct. Maybe the state would have been better just paying for the mansion out of public funds. Favors for the special interests will probably cost the state 10 fold what the mansion cost.
Anonymous said…
Dwight Hale is a 60 year old Democrat from Huron. Word on the street is that his first ad ran on TV long enough for him to get served with a cease and desist for broadcasting blatant lies.

Anon 3:04:
You seem to be the same guy that writes all the Letters to the Editor for Billion these last few months. You guys should switch up some of your phrases a little bit so it doesn't sound so repetitive.
Anonymous said…
The Gov mansion was built with private funds! Whine whine whine, come up with some real solutions to our problems.

This is all smoke and mirrors because you don't have a candidate.
Anonymous said…
Stop the lies. Our Governor is a very nice man. He would never influence who gets State contracts. He is a man of honor. I can tell just by looking at him, the eyes don't lie. I believe every decision he makes is what is best for all of us. We all need to show him some respect. Afterall he still is our Governor.
Anonymous said…
10:12, is that you Britney Spears? Believe him because he's our governor? His eyes? A dog can look at you with the same look as Rounds often gives, doesn't mean the Dog knows what's going on either. Still can't vote for Billion...what a state.
Anonymous said…
anon 10:12
Kool-aid! Kool-aid!
The Governor has served you too much. The good news is help can be found at www.billionforgovernor.com
I wish you the best of luck in your recovery for Kool-aid drinking.
Anonymous said…
Hey 9:24 give the media credit. With every ad I have ever been involved with on any campaign the media checked the source data BEFORE the ad ran. So the information is correct. You may not like it, but it is accurate.

Since the ad ran on three networks, THREE TV stations verified it before it ran.
Anonymous said…
These ads at least point to specifics.

Rounds talks about vision and leadership. What is that? How is it measured?

Lets hear some specific meaningful results. Holding Capitol for a Day is not a result or leadership. Fours years later the Governor should have a long list of accomplishments not general feel good words to describe what he has done.

Who is the incumbent? Where is the ROI Governor?
Anonymous said…
When running for governor in 2002, Rounds unveiled his "2010 Initiative". That was a good piece of marketing because it would take him two terms to complete the initiative.

Now Rounds is done with one term, and halfway to 2010. Why isn't he out there saying that he is halfway to each of the goals in the 2010 Initiative?

Could it be because he's nowhere near halfway to the goals and doesn't want to talk about it?


It's going to be an issue that Rounds hasn't gotten the job done on 2010.

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