I'm getting dizzy from all that spin. Rapid City municipal races have gone wild.

The Rapid City Journal has a story today on the plethora of candidates that are jumping into the Mayoral race. Despite it all, the mayor has one thing he wants to be clear. He is not accepting any paid consulting from Alderman Mike Schumacher:

Shaw clarified Monday that he would not accept paid consulting from Schumacher.

“If Mike is paid by Mr. Hamilton, I don’t need or want any campaign manager,” he said.

Two weeks ago Shaw said he would accept Schumacher’s help if offered, but said he and his family would run the campaign itself, like they have done in the past.

and...

Schumacher, who is running for re-election to the council, said he doesn’t know if the controversy generated about the situation will harm his own election chances. At least two people are running against Schumacher in Ward 1.

Read it all here. This comes a day or so after one of Mike's former supporters, State Senator Bill Napoli just lambasted him in the letters to the editor column in the same newspaper. Check this out:

Schumacher in supporting Kooiker’s run for mayor was obviously opposed to Shaw’s re-election. Now, because Big Money is thrown at Schumacher, he (Schumacher) says he’s rethought his position and now supports Shaw. I can’t believe Shaw is allowing this debacle to cast a shadow over his campaign.

I believe Schumacher’s actions speak loudly of his lack of integrity. The real question is how many other issues has Schumacher rethought because of money, perks, or some benefit to himself?

As a councilman, is Schumacher now for sale to the highest bidder? So from now on every vote Schumacher makes will be questionable as to his honesty.

Read that here. And speaking of challengers and that Napoli letter - check out this story:

Revelations about Alderman Mike Schumacher being offered money to guide Mayor Jim Shaw’s re-election campaign have sparked controversy that could end up hurting Schumacher’s city council re-election bid. So far, two people - Brian O’Connor and John Witcraft - have filed nominating petitions to challenge Schumacher. Neither candidate cited Schumacher as a major issue, however.

and...

Schumacher is uncertain what impact the controversy will have on his re-election chances but he still intends to run.

“I don’t know. It could have some effect, yeah,” he said.

Schumacher’s deal doesn’t sit well with at least one past supporter. State Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City, wrote a letter to the editor Sunday that questioned Schumacher’s ethics and urged someone to run against him.

In response, Schumacher said Napoli doesn’t have all the facts.

“That’s what Bill Napoli does. It’s not out of form for Bill to go off without the facts,” Schumacher said. “That’s fine. I won’t blindly support Bill the way I used to. I will openly criticize him when I need to now.”

Read that here. Oh god. First, Mike does himself no good by noting that others refer to himself as "Judas" in the infamous Rapid City Weekly Article. Now he's noting that he follows people blindly and holds criticism of them because of it?

*Note to students of politics - here are two things that people don't really like to see from the people they elect to office.

Six months ago, you'd have never have predicted that the Rapid City Municipal races would have been anywhere close to being this ferocious, much less have an offer (or two) of donations threaten to unseat two elected officials.

But I think it's less about the big money (although that is part) and more about how outrageous the "Joe Six Pack" voter views the act of paid betrayal on the part of Alderman Schumacher. And the verbal stumbles.

Keep watching. It's only going to get wilder from here on out.