McGovern and Abourezk for Heidepriem: More Reaction

Here's some more reaction from around the blogosphere on the campaigning of former Senators George McGovern and Jim Abourezk on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Scott Heidepriem:

• Kevin Woster at Mount Blogmore sees bringing in the big names as good headline strategy. He thinks GOP slime-meister Lucas Lentsch "overstates" the "Look at those liberals!" attack line ("as is his job," Woster notes). Woster wonders, though, if the liberal associations might turn off some voters come general election time (keep trying, Pat!).
• Doug Wiken notes in comments to Woster that even if you're an animal of completely different (orthogonal?) political stripes, you shouldn't pass up the chance to have a conversation with two remarkable and intelligent politicians like Abourezk and McGovern.
• Bob Mercer is "stumped" by the conservative noise over a gubernatorial candidate enjoying the campaign assistance of two well-known South Dakota statesmen. The only downside Mercer sees is that Abourezk and McGovern may be too far removed from the memory of the younger half of the electorate to rouse much excitement. I suggest to Bob that one can find an appreciation of history among our younger voters.
• Travis Dahle at the real Badlands Blue notes that association with a war hero and a civil rights leader might benefit a candidate more than hiring a strident conservative blogger who focuses on ad hominem attacks.

Chamber of Commerce Relies on Government Subsidy

Sibby thinks he's got news this morning, noting that the Cheyenne River Chamber of Commerce has received $37K in federal stimulus dollars. So much for the free-market capitalist Chamber of Commerce, right?

Obviously Sibby has forgotten an example much closer to home, the Madison Chamber of Commerce, which subsists on a regular subsidy of$60K or more each year from the mostly Republicans who run the City of Madison. Socialism? Fascism? Small-town hypocrisy? What say you, Sibby?

2008 GDP by City: South Dakota Good, North Dakota Better

One more useful function of goverment: cool statistics and maps!

The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases 2008 GDP data for America's 366 metropolitan statistical areas. Overall, 2008 wasn't a complete wash: the 366 MSAs averaged 0.8% GDP growth. 146 of those metros (about 40%) matched or bettered their 2007 GDP growth. Unfortunately, 116 (32%) saw zero growth or actual declines in 2008. This BEA map shows how the nation's MSAs ranked by quintile (top fifth to bottom fifth—click to enlarge!):


The economy is apparently like fashion: it takes longer for trends to get to the Great Plains. The best GDP growth was right down the great American midsection. Rapid City made the top 20%; Sioux Falls stayed ahead of the curve, making the top 40%. Compare these rankings for cities of interest in our neighborhood:

MSA	% change real GDP, 2008	rank
Grand Junction, CO	12.3	1
Fargo, ND-MN	6.4	9
Sioux City, IA-NE-SD	5.6	11
Cedar Rapids, IA	4.1	31
Rapid City, SD	3.9	34
Cheyenne, WY	3.4	41
Boulder, CO	3.2	48
Colorado Springs, CO	3.2	48
Iowa City, IA	3.1	51
Bismarck, ND	2.6	64
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	2.5	68
St. Cloud, MN	2.5	68
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA	2.4	74
Grand Forks, ND-MN	2.1	87
Ames, IA	2.0	91
Rochester, MN	1.8	107
Lincoln, NE	1.7	111
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	1.7	111
Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL	1.4	137
Sioux Falls, SD	1.4	137
Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA	1.3	148

I can hear Mayor Munson saying, "Take that, Omaha!"

I threw in the New York City just to note that even with bankers jumping out of windows (well, not quite), the Big Apple, with its taxes and liberals and other scourges of economic freedom, still managed to grow last year, and grow faster than Sioux Falls. And up in the land of socialism and income tax, Fargo still whupped our star performer Rapid City by 2.5 percentage points.

Peruse the numbers, form your own economic observations!

By the way, even with all those reporters coming to dig for dirt on the GOP vice-presidential nominee, Anchorage still came out ranked #331, with its economy shrinking 2.4%.

Powers Has Nothing on Heidepriem, Sticks with Absurd Ad Hominem

Munsterman for Governor campaign manager Pat Powers continues to look too far in the future by concentrating his fire on Democrat Scott Heidepriem instead of Munsterman's three immediate Republican primary challengers. And it's not even good fire. In what promises to be standard GOP procedure in 2010, Powers avoids policy and instead attacks Heidepriem for the endorsements he gets from George McGovern and Jim Abourezk.

Heidepriem's hanging out with liberals! shouts Powers. He's Castro! (Yes, Powers really did make the former association.) Powers tells us nothing about what actual policies Heidepriem will advocate that will drag us into liberal Sodom and Gomorrah; he simply provides a bogus verbal template on which his sheep can transpose their favorite irrational fears.

It's not like Heidepriem is hanging out with some fringe radical like me (although he did chat with me once at a debate tournament—uh oh! Lib-a-palooza II!). Heidepriem's receiving the support of two former United States Senators, fellow South Dakotans elected by us. Heidepriem is receiving the support of McGovern, a decorated World War II veteran and U.N. Ambassador on World Hunger, and Abourezk, an Arab-American civil rights leader. So if there's guilt by association, we can expect Heidepriem to support courage under fire, fight hunger, and defend civil rights—oh! the horrors of the liberal agenda!

Powers also fails to explain why, if McGovern and Abourzek are such nefarious liberals, they're choosing pragmatic Heidepriem over his real wild-eyed liberal challenger, my man Ron Volesky. (And indeed, I'd like to know, George and Jim, what's up with that? Where's the love? Run hard, Ron!)

Oh well. The Republicans know they have an executive and legislative history that have left us with a structural deficit and shaky budget unable to withstand an economic downturn. They know the policy choices they have to make in the 2010 will not be pretty and will not make for cheery campaign slogans. So Pat Powers, like Lucas Lentsch and the state GOP, are turning early to distraction and slime. It's Obama-Ayers all over again... but the South Dakota Republicans can't even find an Ayers.

Up next from the Munsterman campaign (when they remember "primary" means first): attacks on Knudson's association with liberals at Harvard, Daugaard's association with liberal Chicago lawyers, and Knuppe's liberal facial hair.

1Sky Joins Repower America to Fight for Clean Energy Policy in South Dakota

Badlands Blue gives notice that the green lobby is making an even bigger push in South Dakota. After a busy summer with Repower America opening offices in Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, and Rapid City, another environmental advocacy group, 1Sky, is setting up shop in South Dakota. (Should I start chanting, 'We surround you!"?) 1Sky is throwing a kickoff meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the Kenny Anderson Community Center in Sioux Falls.

1Sky's focus is to push for congressional action on climate change. Their main target here is likely Senator Tim Johnson, who could still be swayed to vote for ACESA. And yes, Troy, 1Sky wants to move us away from coal—not get rid of it, just stop increasing our dependence on it (kind of like Otter Tail Power is doing by bailing out of Big Stone II).

1Sky also sets as goals five million new green jobs and reduction of greenhouse emissions by 35% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

This proliferation of environmental advocacy does raise one Spockly eyebrow. 1Sky is part of Bill Clinton's Global Initiative; Repower America is Al Gore's baby. Now wouldn't it be fun to watch those two guys trying to outgreen each other? But hey, if the Rotary and Kiwanis can get along, so can Repower America and 1Sky. And they may do even more good.

Support Baucus's Private Insurance Profit Protection Act

Hat tip to William at Badlands Blue, who takes no guff from no one, and who I think knows who really benefits from Max Baucus's proposed health reform bill:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

p.s.: English professors dig it, too!

Health Reform Debate: Excluding Voices of Those Who Need Reform Most

I know SHS will tell us it's "ridiculous" to suggest that campaign donations have anything to do with who's got Congress's ear on health care.

Hogwash. Money has everything to do with whose voices are heard in Washington...

...health care corporations and professional organizations have actively engaged the Blue Dogs. So far this year, the Blue Dogs' political action committee has received $301,500 from health care and health insurance PACs. [Congressional Blue Dog leader Mike] Ross, the coalition's lead negotiator, has received $100,600 for his campaign committee and a PAC that he operates.

Ross got together with health care industry donors in June, around the same time the Blue Dogs were challenging the House bill. The event brought his campaign at least $20,000 from health care PACs.

...and whose voices aren't:

[A town hall meeting last month] was a chance for Ross' constituents to be heard. It ran well over the two-hour time limit, but mostly, there was only the familiar bickering about illegal immigrants and the role of government. Just three people without insurance asked questions.

"Many of those individuals who would need a public health care option are those who are not likely to be able to take two hours out of their day to go to a public event like that town hall," says Kevin Motl, a history professor at Ouachita Baptist University who attended the meeting. "They were too busy earning hourly wages and trying to keep roofs above their children's heads. Those voices are not going to be present in that discourse."

It's a basic truth of political analysis that low-income residents — that is, those most likely to be uninsured — are less likely than middle-class people to attend town meetings and less likely to vote. To state the obvious, the poor are also less likely to make campaign contributions [Peter Overby, "Who's Representing the Uninsured on Capitol Hill?" NPR Morning Edition, 2009.09.22].

The folks who need the public option most, the folks Uncle Sam needs to insure, are the folks who are working so hard to pay the bills they don't have time to stop and ask the scoialism criers just what dope they are smoking.

Let's help the working class. Skip the mandate: create competition and save lives by insuring everyone with the public option.

NPR: Herseth Sandlin Faces "Substantial Challenge"

I'm perusing NPR.org this morning for news on health care when I find an interesting political note. On a map that breaks down percentages of uninsured Americans by state and Congressional district, NPR includes a filter for "swing districts," "75 House districts... identified by NPR News as districts in which incumbents face substantial challenges in the next election."

Making that list: South Dakota, where incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has won two straight landslide victories and faces one declared 2010 challenger, party outsider Thad Wasson of Piedmont. I wonder what tea leaves NPR is reading....

Obama Dings Bailed-out Banks for Balking at Student Loan Reform

President Obama criticizes the special-interest opposition to his plan to reform student loans and strengthen Pell grants (HR 3221, which passed the House last week):

Mr. Obama, speaking at a community college, said that American banks had received bailout money from the federal government, and yet were still fighting against a proposal that would eliminate an unwarranted subsidy which the banks receive for providing student loans.

“Ending this unwarranted subsidy for big banks is a no-brainer for folks everywhere,” Mr. Obama said, before lashing out against his favorite target of late. “Everywhere except Washington, that is. In fact, we’re already seeing the special interests rallying to save this giveaway” [Helene Cooper, "Obama Criticizes Banks over Student Loan Subsidies," New York Times: The Caucus, 2009.09.21].

So let's rewind the tape: why did Congresswomen Herseth Sandlin say she voted against HR 3221?

The enactment of this bill in this form could result in the loss of hundreds if not thousands of jobs in South Dakota during a period of higher unemployment," she told reporters Thursday, mentioning Student Loan Corp. in Sioux Falls, a subsidiary of Citi [Ledyard King, "Student Loan Reform Could Cost S. Dakota," that Sioux Falls paper, 2009.09.18].

SHS is fighting for a continued government subsidy to Citi, which we bailed out with $50 billion, the most given yet to any one bank. Senator Thune says he's all about ending the bailouts (which he voted for)... yet he supports continuing the student loan subsidy as well.

Please tell me at least Senator Tim Johnson will agree with the President that ending this subsidy and making college more affordable for more Americans during a recession is indeed a no-brainer.

Put Lipstick on This Pig: Women Win More Pork in Congress

So this study makes Shantel Krebs the frontrunner against Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, right?

Are women more effective lawmakers than men?

That’s the preliminary conclusion of a study conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Chicago, who say that on average, women in Congress introduce more bills, attract more co-sponsors and bring home more money for their districts than their male counterparts do.

The study, which examined the performance of House members between 1984 and 2004, found that women delivered roughly 9 percent more discretionary spending for their districts than men [Erika Lovley, "Study: Women Lawmakers Outperform Men," Politico.com, 2009.09.15].

She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan...

Wait—maybe I can look at this another way. Maybe this is what the fundamentalists had in mind when they said SHS should stay home and focus on her family. They weren't spewing misogyny; they were acknowledging that replacing SHS with a man would result in less federal funding for South Dakota projects... which is what every Republican wants... right?

Klobuchar Joins Movement to Ban Texting While Driving

In other news, senior Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is proposing legislation that would cut federal highway funds by 25% to states that don't ban texting while driving. (That will be on top of whatever money Tim Rounds will lose us with his drinking age proposal.)

Klobuchar joins Senators Hagan, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Menendez in co-sponsoring Senator Schumer's S. 1526, the ALERT Drivers Act. No SHS on the House version yet, but given data that texting while driving makes it 23 times more likely that drivers will run over liberal bloggers and their families, expect more Democratic co-sponsors shortly.

Also expect more silly grumbling about nanny-statism from the Right. That darned nanny state with its drivers licenses and stop signs and speed limits....

Pine Beetles Threaten Harney Peak Trails: Clear 'Em Out!

Regular readers know I get a little sentimental about trees. I'm also a big fan of Harney Peak, one of South Dakota's great geological wonders, not to mention the center of the universe for some of our neighbors.

So a little blurb on KELO about timber cutting shutting down two Harney Peak trails gets me going on two levels. I go looking for the full story and get it from (who else?) Kevin Woster. He gets my attention with one sentence from Custer State Park Superintendent Richard Miller about what pine beetles are doing to the Black Elk Wilderness:

Miller said there are estimates that 80 percent of all the trees in the Black Elk will be dead in two to three years....

Oof. The proper response: clear out about 3000 acres of beetle-infested trees. Beetles can spread from tree to tree more easily in forests made artifically thick by our overzealous fire suppression policies. Thin the trees, slow the beetles.

CAH below Harney Peak, coming up the north face from Willow Creek trailhead, August 2001. Photo: Tobias W. Uecker

I've been up Harney Peak several times, usually day-hiking, a couple times backpacking, and once snow-shoeing. The hike and the summit peak are glorious every time. I've hung out with hikers cooking noodles out of the wind in the old fire station. I've ridden the top of the tower through an advancing sea of clouds at sunset. I've come home with feet a-glitter from the mica trails. And I've rested comfortably in the deep shade of the high rocks and trees along the Harney Peak trails.

I hate to see destruction done along the Harney Peak trails. But the real destroyers are the beetles and previous bad policy, not the loggers being brought in to clean up the mess. CSP chief forester Adam Gahagan says the cleared areas will green up fast, much like the recovery seen in the area of the 1988 Galena fire. It will not be the same thick forest... but a thick forest of dead brown trees is no forest at all.

To keep the Idaho helicopter crews from dropping logs on hikers' heads, Trail #4 at Little Devils Tower will be closed through the winter. Trail #9 from Sylvan Lake will be closed from October 1 until Christmas (keep to that schedule, fellas: there are folks planning their New Year's hike!). If you want to visit Harney Peak this fall, you'll need to come up the north face from the Willow Creek trailhead (Hiram Rogers's favorite route).