As Pat Powers whines about who is dividing the South Dakota Republican Party and portrays it as some kind of recent occurrence, the truth is that the divide has been around for a while. Joseph Bottum touched on it in a 2004 column call "Prairie Politics". Excerpt:
With Janklow's conviction last December, a special election gave the congressional seat to Herseth--which made every member of South Dakota's delegation to Washington a Democrat. The destruction of the Republican party in a majority Republican state is the real legacy of 30 years of Janklow's personal dominance.
One hardly needs to add it up: Janklow campaigned against an incumbent Republican named James Abdnor in 1986, and the result was Democrat Tom Daschle's election to the Senate. He systematically undermined every rising Republican from Clint Roberts to Dale Bell, and the result was Democratic Senator Tim Johnson's election in 1996. He opened up South Dakota's sole congressional seat with his manslaughter conviction, and the result was Democrat Stephanie Herseth's special election. Outsiders sometimes wonder why a strongly pro-life state like South Dakota is represented in Washington entirely by pro-abortion officials; the answer is Bill Janklow.
The 1994 SD GOP primary for governor pitted Janklow against sitting governor Walter D. Miller. That race was heated as reported on 5/27/1994 in the Mitchell Daily Republic:
Gov. Walter D. Miller’s campaign commercial depicting former Gov. Bill Janklow’s management style as that of a one-man band is funny and is not a negative ad, Lt. Governor Steve Kirby says.
Here is a quote from Kirby:
"I will tell you honestly that I don’t look at the one-man band ad as being negative," Kirby said in an interview. "It tells the truth that Bill has taken his arms, back in eight years he was governor, and wrapped them around state government, and nothing got done without Bill.
This 6/23/1994 Daily Republic report talks about the divide that resulted from the primary battle:
Republicans battle-scarred from a nasty governor’s primary election race are holding their state convention here through Saturday to reunite and regroup for victory in November.
In a 1/19/1998 Daily Republic report, Janklow is taking heat from Republicans for praising Tom Daschle:
Some Republicans have cringed in the past year as Gov. Bill Janklow has repeatedly praised Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle, who happens to be running for re-election this year.
And Joseph Bottum points out the Janklow anti-Thune influence during the 2004 South Dakota Senate race:
Still, Janklow's associates and friends--particularly Kris Graham, who recently appeared in an anti-Thune ad--are said to be playing key roles in the Democrats' "Republicans for Daschle" campaign, which aims to convince voters that it's all right to split their ticket and vote for both President Bush and Senator Daschle.
That's the world Thune has to run against, the South Dakota of Bill Janklow, and though one poll now has him ahead, he still faces an uphill climb. Without some lucky breaks and real help from the national party, Thune may not make it.
John Thune did win, and shorly afterwards, an anonymous blogger who claimed to be a Republican started to attack those of us who supported John Thune by calling us the "Apple Dumpling Gang" and me a "Hillbilly". Here is an excerpt from the South Dakota Blog Watch Man:
I've spent part of the day reading old, old, old posts by the lonely boys who make up the Apple Dumpling Gang. These are from the early days of blogging in South Dakota, when Jason Heppler was still wearing pull-ups and Steve Sibson was chasing Dave Kranz around political conventions trying to see if he wanted to be friends, or at least see his Rush Limbaugh pajamas. And the irony is that half the eunechs in the Dakota Blog Alliance posted anonymously. It wasn't until they all got together for their first circle jerk, commonly referred to as a blogging conference, that they decided to reveal their identities. Problem was, nobody knew who they were and even fewer people cared.
There's only one thing about these goons that pisses me off, and I've mentioned it a few other times: the Republican party was my party long before it was theres. When I joined, there were no loyalty oaths that said we had to blindly support any candidate with an (R) behind his name, no matter what asinine path he leads us down. (That was the Nazis, fellows. Wrong party.)
And Pat Powers and Todd Epp praised the SDBWM’s efforts that included personal attacks toward us conservatives. I find it hypocritical of Pat Powers to argue that the SDCAC is bad for the SDGOP because we are not working within the Party. As my questions surrounding Tony Dean clearly shows, Pat Powers supports those who attack conservative Republicans and those Republicans who are willing to publicly support Democrats, except for Stan Adelstein. Oddly, there is a Janklow connection here as detail by Denise Ross:
I recall a post asking why the media hasn’t uncovered the story that Bill Janklow is behind the Mainstream Coalition. I don’t know that he is, but there are plenty of Janklow’s close associates and allies on its membership list — notably Dave Volk, who served as his Commerce Secretary when governor and as state director when congressman; Kitty Kinsman, who served as Health Secretary when governor; former legislator Jan Nicolay; current legislator Stan Adelstein and former chief of staff when governor (and lawyer during the manslaughter case) Dave Knudson.
While it is an impressive list, I’ll have to be convinced that Janklow spawned this thing. I think it’s more likely that the same philosophical beliefs that have bound these folks and Janklow also bind them in forming the coalition.
And those "philosophical beliefs" are clearly anti-conservative. And Pat Powers seems to be concerned that the SDCAC is going to upset these anti-conservative RINOs. And Pat Powers also has attacked us on the Keloand Drive-by media web site. Clearly conservatives have to suspecious of the true agenda of Pat Powers.
The divide in the SD GOP has been there long before Steve Sibson or the SDCAC entered the South Dakota political scene. His statements that the SDCAC and I are going to split the South Dakota GOP is an outright lie. All we are doing is defining who are true conservatives and who are not. And that distinction becomes very clear once you know who are the members in the Janklow gang. Could that also include Pat Powers?
