South Dakota War College

I'm adding Charlie House to my Blog reading list. I've been entertained by many of his posts on Mt. Blogmore, and never realized that he had his own Weblog.

I had to add this because I worked quite a bit on the SD State Quarter project. Click quickly, because it will be gone next week. On the spat between Minnesota and Colorado on the State Quarter. http://www.thisistrue.com/currentissue.html

I want to work on a couple of big posts about the power of incumbency, so I thought I'd drop this little one in, in the meantime. A few weeks back (April 12, 2005), Dave Kranz had noted a few of the people who are being talked about for Governor, and I had opportunity to razz one of them about being noted as a "Kranz Contender." In response, he commented to me that he thought Dave left a few legitimate contenders off the list, first and foremost, Mark Mickelson. The Kranz Contender noted, that if Mark Mickelson stood up today and indicated that he was going to run for Governor in 2010, despite having not held previous political office, he would be taken as serious as a heart attack. The contender noted "He's photogenic, he has money, and more than anything, he has the family name." Now, let it be known on the record that I dislike the anointing thing, because I don't think anyone deserves anything because of their name. Very possibly because my forbearer...

As I way laying in bed awake last night waiting to take my oldest daughter to the bus for a chorus trip departing at 3:00 AM, I was trying to ponder topics for the War College. All of a sudden last night, I was pleasantly suprised that I got noticed in a big way (at least to me), with links and fairly positive comments from SD Blog Watch Man , SD Watch , and the grandaddy of them all, South Dakota Politics . Props from the right and the left? Oh great. That means at some point I'm going to get bashed by both sides from time to time when I shoot off my mouth. Anyway, I was thinking, this means I need to come up with things on a regular basis. Not a problem. But they should be remotely intelligent. Oh, Crap. Have I already Jumped the Shark ? For the Pop culture deficient, To " jump the shark " - the moment when a television show or similar episodic medium is in retrospect judged to have passed its "peak" and shows a noticeable decline in quality. The "jumpin...

Until Thune's first Senate campaign, I have to admit I'd never heard buttons, notepads, and "the other crap people send you brochures to buy" referred to as collaterals. Collaterals? It just makes me think of the bad Arnold movie (And there was only one, you know). I've been a political item collector ever since I started working for the GOP. With increases in family size, my collection has shrunk. I once boasted one of the 3 or 4 most complete sets of Inaugural Pins in the state. I was only missing the first 2, and I had a line on that second one. But, have another kid, bills come due, frivolity has got to go. (my comics had already went to pay for my last semester of college). I did manage to hang on to the prize of my collection, a large silk campaign ribbon from 1892 announcing the Harrison and Morton Club of Deadwood, Dakota. Every once in a while I flirt with selling it. I recently had contacted Heritage Auctions about a value on it, and they thought they c...

(*Team America Fans will get that one) Well, I'm making a few more attempts at attention. I sent out a few more e-mails. I'm probably not controversial enough. I'm more concerned with getting at the nuts and bolts of campaigns, and trying to figure out why. It's kind of the small boy mentality of wanting to know how something works, so let's take it apart, which I did often as a kid. It's not that I'm a purist. I'm not pure, anyone who knows me well will attest to that. I get emotional with campaigns. Not weepy girly stuff. More akin to "I am girded for battle. Into the breach!" I get a little fired up. My mouth somtimes engages without the full benefit of my brain. When Larry Russell was running in the special nominating convention for the congressional vacancy, and a group of us were campaigning for him and standing on the convention floor, in the heat of the moment, I seem to recall uttering something in the direction of his opponent's ...

I've been noodling on what topic to delve into tonight, and have had a tough time getting started. I was thinking about what factions have developed in the GOP party since 2004, but then I got sidetracked. I was also thinking on discussing Sibby's hatred for Tony Dean, but that would take way too long to analyze (Tony's actually a close family friend). So I went to something a little more timely in my life... Dear Penthouse, I never believed those stories about swinging until it happened to me in Brookings, SD. (Okay, that's not what I meant.) I'm in the process of setting up residence in Brookings. My wife just got a nice job there, and now I have to figure out what I'm going to do (Either "Would you like fries with that", or "Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart"). Actually, I'm looking at a couple of things, or I could go into business for myself and give at least 33% off the top to the Federal Government. Thanks for punishing someone tr...

Okay, I admit it. I'm a little put off by the non-attention. I had sent a couple e-mails out the other day, one to South Dakota 123 and another to South Dakota Politics about the existence of my little weblog. You know, just a little "here I am." The sole comment I had gotten has energized me into putting some effort into this. And then nothing. Nada. Zip (you get the picture). Is it my poor writing skills? I'm not THAT bad. Is it the fact that I really haven't said anything really nasty? At least not yet. Just wait. I can be as obtuse as the best of them. Just get me going on a rant. It's a lot like why people get into politics. Because they have something to say. Okay, I'm here to say something about the process, because at the end of the day, campaigns are not won on beliefs. They are won based on who ran the better campaign. That's really the whole point of my little corner of dialogue. Thune lost against Johnson the first time, because John...

I was perusing the weblogs last night, and I saw this post from the Clean Cut Kid hacking on Bob Mercer. And all I could think was "Gee, you're not doing your cause any good." Bob's a reporter, same thing as some people are government workers, some people are truck drivers, some people are teachers, and so on. Each is going to do their job in the best way that they see fit. If they do a poor job, they lose credibility, and ultimately their job. The point in this is, Bob's been around a while, so I consider him pretty credible. Now, here's the part where I go into a story. I remember when I was doing work as the Pennington CO GOP Director, and was in my second legislative session of work. The previous year, I had set up a weekly press briefing for the Pennington County GOP. (I've got another good story to come out of this, but I'll keep it on point for now.) It was covered and after a few weeks, it assisted us with our earned media. We had coverage tha...