Matt Varilek habla español. ¡Sí se puede!

Wow, haven't hit that button for a while!

While I continue to repair the MadvilleTimes.com database, I can't resist posting this remarkable video, in which Matt Varilek demonstrates that he's not only well-educated and well-traveled, but also bilingual:
 

In this interview with Sioux Falls media outlet La Voz, you hear Matt Varilek speak more Spanish than Kristi Noem has probably spoken in her life.

Meanwhile, conservative political scholar Jon Schaff doesn't even damn Noem with faint praise. He derides her non-record and her desperate campaign against Varilek as verging on "ignorant provincialism":

Noem seems to have little to offer as a candidate other than being "more South Dakota than thou."  As a challenger that isn't really a problem.  But cute ads and plaid shirts are not a subsitute for legislative achievement.  It is not enough that she shares the views and "values" of most South Dakotans.  She's not been elected to share our values, but to do something about them [Jon Schaff, "Noem Not Gonna Get Out Dakota'd," South Dakota Politics, November 4, 2012]. 

Bob Ellis suggests that a good stiff narrow victory may teach Kristi Noem to get back to her values. As a teacher, I reject the notion of giving failing students passing grades. They won't learn that they haven't performed up to standards from a passing grade. The best way to teach Kristi a lesson is to give her an F so she can go back to the farm, think about the errors of her ways... and brush up her Spanish for 2014!