Dave Kranz covers the latest developments in District 20:
State Rep. Mike Vehle, a Mitchell Republican, has cleared some of the air on what is going on with the District 20 Senate race that includes Aurora and Davison counties.
With Republican State Sen. Ed Olson term-limited, there are a variety of people who might seek that job.
Vehle says he has decided to run for the seat Olson is vacating, leaving open a District 20 House slot. Dr. Joe Graves, Superintendent of Mitchell Public School, has been considering a possible House or Senate candidacy on the Republican ticket. The Mitchell School Board recently wrote a policy that would allow Graves to run for public office.Graves said last week that he will make his decision by tonight or Tuesday.
Steve Sibson also has indicated an interest in the Senate or House seat.
"If I can't get enough Republicans to sign the Senate petition, then my next option would be to run (for the Senate) as an independent. I think I can be successful in building a big enough coalition of independents, conservative Republicans, and populist Democrats to defeat Vehle in November," Sibson said.
Sibson says there is more of a difference between him and Vehle and feels the House "does a great job of representing the people."
He says the Senate chamber has its own agenda and is in need of change.
I sent Kranz an email response to his inquiry last week. Here is what he did not cover:
I believe the House chamber already does a great job of representing the people. It is the Senate chamber that has its own agenda, and is in need of change.
Case in point was the attempt last year to start the process of implementing Hillary Clinton’s Universal Pre-K agenda of "It takes a Village". And my research shows that the village is the global village. The Senate passed it easily, and the House Education committee stopped it and the House did not go along with the proponent’s attempt to smoke it out. Mike Vehle voted in favor of the smoke out. The legislation is back again in the form of SB26 with the Associated School Boards of South Dakota publicly backing it, I need no further motivation to run against Mike Vehle in the primary. I believe it is in the best interest of children to be brought up in a traditional family setting, and not having government become their parents.
Thursday night, Kranz told me he wasn’t going to include that and tried to convince me that it would be better if I wrote a letter to the editor to cover the issue. Kranz is more interested in tabloid than the issues. And anybody who has followed this web site through the years understands the difficulty I have had getting facts printed with letters to the Argus Leader. Also on Thursday night, I was told by a respected Republican that I will have difficulty having a campaign based on issues. Mel Olson says this in the Kranz column:
Olson gives a caution to Democrats trying to build strength in the Legislature.
"The Democratic Party's big strategy is that they have a very real chance to (win) control of the Senate, and I was part of that strategy. But there is still more needed than control. There has to be an agenda," he said.
It is unfortunate that South Dakota politics has gotten so superficial. The environment has turned to a popularity contest based on who ends up raising the most money. The focus is on gaining power, rather on doing the right thing. Pat Powers has said repeatedly that the main focus for Republicans should be to stop the bleeding of Senate seats. Why can't the focus be on doing what is right for South Dakota? Elections should instead be focused on issues.
I think the time is right to turn this around. I do believe that the environment has turned a lot of people into independents. Democrats like Cory Heidelberger tell us that the Democrats are looking to populism, but they have yet to realize that their big government ways stands in the way of self-governance. That is why their agenda is not known. If it was, they would lose. Instead, their strategy is to pull themselves up by pushing Republicans down with their media friends repeating any kind of Republican corruption that comes to the surface.
Can I change all of that in District 20? I don’t know, but I am going to give it a try.
