South Dakota War College

I didn't intend to, but I got myself involved with a local referral measure. The city had proposed changes in the form of government from a city council model to a city manager model. Problem is, the city's finances are in a shambles, and they hired from within for the city manager. Great. That's just what's needed. Give the people involved in causing the problem more power. Sorry. I'm going to contest that one. We got it put on the ballot. I suck at getting signatures, because I'm pretty much homebound with 6 kids, but I can work voodoo magic on the rest of it. We'll have to see how it all works out. One bit of advice I had for the people who drug me into this - the messenger is the message. They need a spokesperson who is well liked, and non-controversial. The message needs to be well framed, and they need to have thier poop in a group. Ballot measures are the purest form of how many people think political campaigns should be. It's all about educa...

Today, I ran into a lady who had been beaten in what was probably the most expensive legislative primary in state history. I've known her and thought highly of her since first meeting her over a decade ago. In speaking with her, my thought was "I hope you're going to try it again." Why? Why would you put yourself up for that abuse again? The long hours, the work, the money, the investment of yourself - why would you do that again? Simply put, its worth it. Teddy Roosevelt lost the mayoral campaign for NYC before becoming president. Ronald Reagan came within a hair of defeating Gerald Ford, but later came back to become a 20th century presidential icon. Newt Gingrich ran and lost more than once before finally winning his congressional seat, and the list goes on. In South Dakota, I know of many current and former legislators who got beaten, only to return again. Former State Representative Mary Edelen from Vermillion got beaten once. Mary was a Republican can...

I've had people ask me before - If I want to run for office, what's good reference material out there to teach me how to campaign or how to run a campaign. That's a tough one. Anything you read is typically not geared towards a state like South Dakota. Dr. Alan Clem's book The making of Congressmen: Seven campaigns of 1974 is worth reading, as are any of his other books about South Dakota. (Sometimes they get a little dry, but this is SD political history and analysis, not Tom Clancy). While I don't always agree with Dr. Clem (I thought his comments here were really off-base and more than just a little snarky), his book about the '74 elections remains one of the premiere references of South Dakota politics. I was working for the state party when I met Diane Malavolti, who worked at Minnehaha County as thier executive secretary. I was later the Pennington Co Exec. Dir., while she was an Exec. Sec. - we never could figure out the difference in po...