Thune Goes to the Lake: No Challenger

Mr. Hendrickson takes a break from baseball just long enough to point me toward official word there will be no U.S. Senate race in South Dakota this year. Mark St. Pierre tried and failed to get enough signatures to run as an Independent against Senator John Thune. Signatures needed: 3356. Signatures filed: 2916.

Worth noting: if St. Pierre had filed under a party banner on March 31, he'd have made the ballot. This year, Republicans needed 2070 signatures, while Dems needed 1213. Start a new party, and you can get the job done with 250 signatures. Of course, you'll need 250 members....

So is the glass half-empty or half-full? St. Pierre failed to demonstrate the ability organize an effective statewide campaign or coordinate it with clear Web visibility the way the Weiland and Howie-nullification lightning campaigns did. St. Pierre had one billboard webpage with one phone number and one e-mail address. This isn't even a matter of money: Blogger and Facebook are free and, at this level, essential. When you don't have the money to get out of Kyle and drive around the state yourself to get votes, you have to put up that online outreach. Targeted e-mails aren't enough: you've got to be online, slurping up Google juice and turning curious searchers into signers and stumpers. Demonstrating an ability to take advantage of that easy and free organizing channel would have moved the chances of a Thune defeat from impossible to highly improbable (and that's progress!).

I wasn't charitable with Howie's failed health care initiative campaign, so I shouldn't hypocrisize and praise St. Pierre for coming close. It doesn't matter if you're short by a thousand signatures or by one: if you're not on the ballot, you can't make a difference.

Nonetheless, it is significant that a shoestring campaign, with no backing from the state party or any major organization, offered people a candidate with little chance of winning and still got 2916 people to sign and say, "Absolutely, let's challenge John Thune." That's a significant amount of voter discontent that the South Dakota Democratic Party could have channeled into some useful energy, had it been up for the fight.

And with a surging Kristi Noem riding the momentum of a primary upset, the South Dakota Dems can use all the energy they can get.

St. Pierre Pushing Petitions... and New Filing Advice

As reported earlier this week, Mark St. Pierre is still pushing to get the 3356 petition signatures necessary to place his name on the ballot as an Independent to challenge Senator John Thune. The campaign reports a current signature count of roughly 2000, with more likely floating around.

The filing deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday. We've seen two petition drives this year (Weiland for House and Howie for Secession) round up more signatures than St. Pierre needs in a long weekend.

However, the St. Pierre campaign reports receiving some advice from the Secretary of State's office that differs from the understanding of state law under which we Weiland petitioners operated back at the end of March. SDCL 12-6-8 states, among other things, the following:

A formal declaration of the candidate shall be signed by him prior to the circulation of petitions. The signed declaration of the candidate, or a facsimile thereof, may accompany and be a part of the petition. The original signed declaration shall accompany the group of petitions upon filing.

We Weiland warriors (as well as, I think, the Howie hogwashers) understood that to mean that we could circulate photocopies or digitally-scanned versions of the original petition signed by the candidate, we could fill those copies with voter signatures and get them notarized, but we couldn't send those petitions straight to the Secretary of State's office ourselves. We had to send those petitions to Weiland or his campaign operatives who had the original petitions. Then Weiland et al. would file those originals and photocopies together to comply with SDCL 12-6-8.

But St. Pierre's people say Secretary Nelson's office has advised them otherwise. They say someone in Pierre (not Chris, not Kea... maybe Teresa?) has said circulators may send their facsimile petitions separately. If the office receives a facsimile petition without an accompanying original, the office will either slide that facsimile into the file containing the already filed original. If the original hasn't arrived in the office yet, the office will set the petition aside until the original does arrive, at which point the office will file those documents together.

If I were St. Pierre's people, I'd still be looking for a way to gather all those petitions in one big box and deliver them personally (not to mention doing a count and quality control check before delivery). But if the Secretary of State's office says you can file facsimile petitions separate from their originals, then that must be acceptable... right?

For some reason, I'm still queasy. Any readers able to confirm the above interpretation? I may need to make a call myself Monday morning....

Mark St. Pierre Seeks Signatures to Challenge Thune

My neighbor Rod Goeman cites a Rasmussen poll on strong anti-incumbent sentiment, but notes that John Thune is "safe". Earlier this spring I had an online conversation with a Tea Party type who said "We should vote out all of the incumbents!" but hemmed and hawed when I reminded her that John Thune is an incumbent.

Care to test whether the people shouting "Throw the bums out!" really mean it? Mark St. Pierre is willing to conduct that experiment. Last night he sent to various Dems this call for signatures... and the attached petition images. In St. Pierre's words:

...as you know the party did not put forward a candidate to challenge John Thune. Johns record as a simple minded obstructionist is know to all of us. If the Democrats put forward, "Keeping Breathing Air Free" he would vote to kill it. He is against bank regulation, consumer protection, consumer education, health care and virtually everything. I am sure he is still singing "drill baby drill" at bed time, even as millions of comon folk like us lose their income and culture in the Gulf Region. I could not in good conscience let this man, of all men, run unopposed as if people of good conscience in our state approved in some way what he has been doing, or more realistically, not been doing. If it were up to Johhny, the Iraq War would be offcially enacted as never ending as it creates profits for big business, his real constituency. We have a chance, a slim chance I will grant, to stop him and send a Progressive to Washington. I am a new-commer to politics. I live on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I have not spent years getting to know all of you, but I have recieved the endorsement of many long time Democrats including, Paul Jenson, 5th generation Democrat, Jay Davis, Curt Pochardt, Deb McIntyre, Twila Merril, and many many more. I have the help of dedicated and progressive Independents like Kim Ames Wright, Chairwoman SD Ind. Movment 81000 strong, (out pounding the pavement). I have been a Democrat or a Democrat leaning Independent all of my life and been a business man, educator, writer, community development professional, and film maker, father of 3 and grandfather to 7. This is certainly the grass roots effort stories evolve from and I ask you to join us, who are out collecting signatures, to at least give us a chance to organize around a candidate who is on the ballot. We are at 1400 signatures with a little over a week to go. We need 4000. If everyone on this email list got one sheet completed we would have the number we need. All of us will be out everyday until the 7th to make this happen. Do not let this opportunity to send a clear messaage to the U.S. slip away. Join us! [Mark St. Pierre, e-mail, 2010.05.29].

Given that everyone is out fishing and waterskiing and not checking their e-mail, this message may go unnoticed for a couple days. Come Tuesday, we'll see if St. Pierre gets a fire started.

If that's what you want, click the above petition scans, print them front-to-back on the same sheet, and go get signatures. St. Pierre's running as an independent, so an registered voter, Dem, GOP, or otherwise, can sign. Practically, you have until Friday to fill it up and get the notary to stamp it. Then, since it's a facsimile and not the original document, you have to mail the document to St. Pierre so he can submit it himself to the Secretary of State.

But people, we really need to stop waiting until the last minute on these things.

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Update 2010.05.30: A St. Pierre operative updates the push, noting that mail take stwo days to get from Rapid City to Kyle: "People can also mail notarized petitions to Jim Petersen, in Rapid City, 1203 11th St., Rapid City, SD 57701, (petersen100@cs.com- 342-6245)) so as received by 7th - if it's last minute, the weekend of June 5th-6th this might result is speedier delivery than mailed to Kyle."