Daugaard Clear Favorite Among Liberal Blog Readers

GOP friends, is that a good thing?

The latest Madville Times poll asked readers "Which Republican is best qualified to be South Dakota's next governor?"

Dennis Daugaard	58% (105 votes)
Dave Knudson	17% (31)
Scott Munsterman	12% (23)
Gordon Howie	7% (13)
Ken Knuppe	3% (6)

Granting a margin of error for online polls slightly larger than the Jim River Valley, what alternative hypotheses might we frame from these results?

1. The sensible read: The GOP primary will go the way the conventional wisdom expects, with Dennis Daugaard's three-year fundraising campaign swamping all comers.
2. The whisker read: Republicans think more like my wife than I about handlebar mustaches. (Or maybe Knuppe just needs to big mutton chops!)
3. The skeptical read: The fine young folks working in the Daugaard campaign office are spending too much time on the Internet.
4. The right-wing read: The liberal readers of the Madville Times clearly prefer Progressive Republicans-in-Name-Only to brave and pure conservatives like Gordon Howie who know that nothing is more important than fighting the culture war.

I'm willing to speculate at this point that South Dakota's gubernatorial candidates will come out in the primary in the same order as this poll... with the possible exception that Munsterman and Howie might swap places, given Howie's potential to coalesce the wingnut vote. The most interesting question may be whether Daugaard can get the mainstream of the party to close ranks and give him a clear majority on June 8.