Sibby Online

Kranz uses sword and shield

David Kranz wrote two stories in today’s Argus Leader regarding the Diedrich-Herseth race for the lone South Dakota House seat. During my lesson on negative campaigning I used a David Limbaugh column that made the point that liberals use negative campaigning as a sword and also as a shield.

First, the sword was used by David Kranz to take a shot at Republicans. This would be the Republicans for Herseth story. Was there anything that pertains to real issues in that attack on Republicans? NO, it was only meant to me an embarrassing shot at Republicans.

Then Kranz goes to the use of negative campaigning as a shield for the Herseth campaign:

The first public dispute in the campaign to fill South Dakota's vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on June 1 came after a Diedrich TV ad aired across the state.

Later Kranz allowed Herseth to bring up the “N” word:

Herseth did not ask stations to remove Diedrich's ad, but after viewing it, she taped a response message that begins airing today.

In it, she says, "By now, you might have seen Larry Diedrich's television ad where he says he's against negative campaigning, and then, in the very next breath, tries to mislead you about my position on taxes."

Finally we have an issue that needs further analysis…tax cuts. Kranz instead is trying to change the focus from the issue to Diedrich running negative ads. Tax cuts are not something a good Democrat supports, therefore, Kranz and Herseth do not want that to be an issue in this race. So pull out the negative campaigning shield as they use a negative campaigning tactic (without admitting it) to embarrass the Diedrich Republicans by pointing out 422 Republicans (RINOs?) who claim are supporting Democrat Herseth. This tactic cannot be implemented without the help of the press…David Kranz to the rescue.

SDP and DVT

Check out this post:

Daschle's journalistic gatekeeper?

Jason Van Beek (southdakotapolitics.blogs.com), researching the papers of former Sen. James Abourezk (D-S.D.), former employer of current Sen. Tom Daschle, discovered numerous memos detailing connections between Democratic campaigns and South Dakota's leading political journalist, David Kranz of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. After chronicling memos from Sen. Abourezk's campaigns that describe Mr. Kranz as a "good democrat," Mr. Van Beek complained that "Kranz has a rich history of bias." That's particularly important in one of this year's key Senate races, between Sen. Daschle and Republican John Thune. As Jon Lauck (dashlevthune.typepad.com) puts it, "Kranz doesn't report the bad things that are written about Daschle in the national press and allow voters to decide for themselves if the criticisms are meritorious. Kranz acts as a journalistic gatekeeper who prevents stories which might hurt Senator Daschle from being heard by SD voters."

Institutional Bias

SDP has posted on a possible 'institutional bias' at the Argus Leader. A couple of days ago, while in a blogger debate, I had an after thought that pointed to an institutional bias at the Argus Leader. Now...I am curious what SDP has snuffed out now. It used to be gum shoe reporting. What should we call the internet version of that?

Daschle the chameleon

DVT has been very busy today covering the ethanol issue. His first post was on the Argus Leader report. Then he picked up on the Washington Post report that Jason found. Then he provided some excellent analysis and told us about his book. You can buy it used on Amazon.com for $14.98. Note that Daschle’s book can be had for $1.69…I paid a whole $2.00 for my copy.

Then he came up with an analysis of the roll call vote where 10 Democrats joined with the Republicans who rejected the cloture motion…this killed the ethanol issue. DVT then posted on Daschle blaming Republicans for the death of ethanol:

Senate Minority Leader Daschle wasted no time Thursday turning the defeat of his ethanol amendment to the Internet tax bill to his advantage by laying the blame at the feet of Senate Republicans, charging in a statement that Republicans "chose to put special interests ahead of the country's economic interest and the interests of farmers and ranchers.

Here is an excerpt of a March 9, 2004 letter I received from Senator Daschle regarding anti-gun amendments added to the bill to protect firearms manufactures and dealer from lawsuits due to the illegal actions of criminals:

During the recent Senate debate on this legislation, senators from both parties offered amendments to the bill. Among the amendments adopted by the Senate were proposals to extend the assault weapons ban of 1994, which is scheduled to expire in September, and address the so-called “gun show loophole’ – an anomaly in existing law that allows non-licensed dealers to sell firearms at gun shows without conduction the criminal background check required of licensed dealers. Both proposals are supported by President Bush, and both pass with significant bipartisan support.

Note the use of the words “significant bipartisan support”. The assault weapons ban amendment passed 52 to 47 with 10 Republicans joining the Democrats. The gun show amendment passed 53 to 46 with 8 Republicans joining the Democrats. When 8 to 10 Republicans join the Democrats, Daschle calls it “significant bipartisan support”. When 10 Democrats join the Republicans to defeat Daschle’s ethanol amendment the Argus Leader was all to happy(see SDP's analysis) to report Daschle’s blame:

Senate Republicans had an opportunity today to deliver a timely economic boost to rural America and send a powerful message to the Persian Gulf oil producers who are intent on driving up American gasoline prices," Daschle said. "Regrettably, because of the Republican leadership, the Senate did not seize this opportunity."

With 10 Democrats voting against Daschle’s ethanol amendment, why wouldn’t he consider that “significant bipartisan support”?

Answer: Tom Daschle is more chameleon than...you fill in the blank.

Update: DVT has another extremely important quote.

Argus Leader attacks conservative

The Argus Leader ran an editorial that quoted (?) a comment Rush Limbaugh made about Tim Giago being talked out of running for the Senate by Tom Daschle:

"I predicted that Tim Giago - South Dakota Native American activist - would be scalped politically. ... Last week, Daschle and Giago had a powwow. What happened in the tepee is unknown, but when the smoke signals cleared, Giago was Home on the Range. ... As for Giago, since he's back on the reservation ... ."

This is what the Argus Leader called Limbaugh:

But racist bigotry still is easy to spot - as it was in a Rush Limbaugh broadcast last week.

Here is the entire unedited Limbaugh statement:

Days ago, my friends, I predicted that Tim Giago - South Dakota Native American activist - would be scalped. Politically. He had the audacity to run for Democrat Senate minority leader Tom Daschle's seat. Now Daschle is in a tight race, the radio show is in trouble, and since Democrats view Native Americans as they do every minority - as their private property - Giago had to go. Last week, Daschle and Giago had a pow-wow. What happened in the tee-pee is unknown, but when the smoke signals cleared, Giago was Home on the Range. He dropped out of the race. Now he supports Daschle...who agreed to "talk" with Indian leaders about the Black Hills...which the federal government took in violation of a treaty - an issue unresolved since 1877. As for Giago: since he's back on the reservation, maybe Daschle will forgive him for asserting himself."

Limbaugh was obviously saying that Tom Daschle was the one who belittled Tim Giago. The Argus Leader completely hacked out the true meaning of Limbaugh’s statement and then attacked Limbaugh by calling him a racist bigot. How pathetic.

Greg Belfrage covered this on Straight Talk tonight and most of the callers said Limbaugh was taken out of context. I am continually amazed at how intuitive the listeners of Greg’s program are.

UPDATE: I sent the following email to Randell Beck, the executive editor of the Argus Leader at 5:05PM, he opened it at 5:25PM. As of 8:10PM, he has not responded. If he does, I will post it:

Randell,

Here is how your paper quoted Rush Limbaugh today:

"I predicted that Tim Giago - South Dakota Native American activist - would be scalped politically. ... Last week, Daschle and Giago had a powwow. What happened in the tepee is unknown, but when the smoke signals cleared, Giago was Home on the Range. ... As for Giago, since he's back on the reservation ... ."

You have criticized bloggers for taking things out of context, but look at the hack job you did on Limbaugh’s comment. The result is a complete loss of Limbaugh’s message.

Then you tried to argue he was a racist bigot who belittled Giago. What Limbaugh really said was that Tom Daschle was the one who belittled Giago.

Steve

MDR opines on MTI ad

The Mitchell Daily Republic published an opinion piece today regarding the controversy surrounding the Daschle campaign’s deception ad on federal funding to the Mitchell Technical Institute. Here’s an excerpt:

You don’t have to be an English teacher to conclude that the author or speaker of those words is someone representing MTI.

But hold on.

MTI director Chris Paustian says he had nothing to do with the words, which introduce a political ad for Sen. Tom Daschle. Mitchell School Superintendent Joe Graves says the school district, which oversees MTI, does not endorse political candidates.

We take our local school officials at their word. However, the advertisement, as written, clearly suggests that MTI was speaking for Sen. Daschle. In fact, that was by design. The Daschle campaign wrote the ad that way to better “connect” with the MTI and a larger constituency.

It’s an effective advertisement.

It’s also wrong.

We’re not referring to some of the claims made by the ad. Daschle has helped MTI. That’s not in dispute. What’s wrong is when a paid political ad comes across as a statement of support by a public entity – in this case MTI – when in fact the message was from Daschle’s ad writers.

My analysis evidenced two areas of deception. First was the Daschle campaign wording the ad so that it sounded like it was coming from MTI. MDR has also proven that. Second the funding itself was from H.R 2673, the 2004 Omnibus bill, that Tom Daschle filibustered for 6 weeks and then at the end of the day…VOTED AGAINST IT. But the MDR op-ed sidestepped, if not, provided the same spin the Daschle campaign would only be proud of. So what’s with that?

Could it be that the MDR admission that the ad content was factually wrong, but they ran it anyway…would be an ethical problem for them? Would the revenue they generated from the ad also have something to do with their refusal to admit the voting record? To be fair, the MDR did report that the Daschle campaign admitted Daschle did not vote for the funding. It is troubling that they left that out today. It is even more troubling that the South Dakota media did not extensively report on the 1/22/2004 vote on 1/23/2004.

Email me if anyone remembers the Argus Leader covering this vote.

Daschle losses again

As SDP noted, Daschle lost the ethanol issue again. His April troubles continues.

Tony Dean…they found me

My hit meter has been running heavy all week, but today it went into overdrive. It was coming from www.ranchers.net. I found out why:

I just found this while "surfing the web" this morning. I haven't even found the name of the guy running the webste, but he sure has Tony Dean's number. Some of you will enjoy reading what he has to say about Dean and the landowners he hates so much.

Note the link called "dissing Tony Dean" is to my Tony Dean index.

My name is Steve Sibson. I was raised on a farm north of Mitchell, SD. I even spent some time on a ranch just north of Presho, SD.

All who want to kick Tony's butt are welcome.

Kranz leading the negativity

DVT’s analysis of today’s David Kranz columns was interesting:

I couldn't help but think of the article written by Dave Kranz in this morning's Argus Leader about the House race, which was completely devoted to image, image perception, "going negative," "staying positive," who might run ads, who are the third party groups, etc... Tonight, Tom Daschle will be at the Waldorff-Astoria in New York City taking money and prizes from trial lawyers for opposing tort reform. Thune is in favor of tort reform. The Argus could do an analysis of this difference of opinion and what explains it, i.e. the Argus could offer actual analysis. Let's see if they do something substantive like they say they want to do.

Kranz is playing into the hands of the Democrats. The issues are not on the Democrats side, so let’s talk about negative ads, but not the issue the ads present. More importantly, Kranz is setting up the Republicans as the attackers, as the bad guys. Here’s an excerpt from the nice guy column:

A feud already has emerged between the two camps over third-party advertising and whether each has asked outside groups to stay out.

Four third-party groups are running five ads targeting Daschle.

Stephen Moore's Club for Growth has a television message saying Daschle supports the estate tax. The Coalition for the Future American Worker has a television ad criticizing Daschle on the immigration issue. A radio ad paid for by the National Grange attacks him on ethanol and energy. The American Family Business Institute also criticizes Daschle in a radio ad for his estate tax position.

Daschle said he is unconditionally opposed to having third-party groups on the air here on his behalf.

"I just want everyone to know my strong desire that all third party groups refrain from coming into South Dakota this year," Daschle said. "There's no reason for them. We don't need Club for Growth and we don't need groups that support Democrats. So I would hope that we can, across the board, say that all third-party groups: take your negative trash elsewhere."

Has anybody found liberal groups attacking John Thune? No, because Daschle doesn’t want the Brady Campaign telling the people of South Dakota that Thune is against gun control. He refuses to support the Million Mom March. He refuses to further regulate gun shows. Dachle doesn’t want NARAL attacking Thune for promoting bans on abortion. That would work against Daschle. Daschle does not want discussion on those issues. But Kranz wants us to think that Daschle is just trying to be a "nice guy". How pathetic.

Now take a look at Kranz’s column on negative calls:

"I find it troubling from a campaign standpoint when the sources of information are not revealed," said John Bart, an associate professor of communications at Augustana College. "I think a push poll done without identification of who is paying for the poll is for me one of the worst aspects of campaigning."

Bart said he was polled recently in the U.S. House race between Stephanie Herseth and Larry Diedrich.

"They start out not attempting to influence or sell a product. Then they go through normal stuff. Then it gets down to who you are more inclined to vote for if you knew how they stood on some issues. In this case, all of Larry Diedrich's were potentially positive. All of Stephanie Herseth's were potentially negative. Clearly, the survey is set up to start changing your opinion," he said.

The caller identified themselves as working for Moore Information. A company with that name based in Portland, Ore., does work for Republican clients across the country.

Bob Moore, head of Moore Information, said Wednesday that he could not comment on whether he has any clients interested in the South Dakota congressional race.

That calling campaign brought the first sign of some negative fire in the House race, however.

Herseth said Diedrich's supporters were testing "false and negative attack lines in calls to South Dakota voters." She said it was an "obvious prelude to a barrage of negative advertising."

Kranz is now attacking Diedrich for being negative with a phone call campaign. Why didn’t Kranz use the recent illegal phone call campaign of the Daschle campaign? Are you listening Randell Beck? Or are you still in a state of denial? Or is this bias expected in the Gannett organization?

More on MTI ad controversy

As a Sibby Online reader has pointed out to me, the Mitchell Daily Republic report from yesterday was not correct regarding comments from Bill Richardson, chairman of the USD political science department, who referred to the MTI ad as a third party ad. Today the MDR ran a report that corrected this:

Dan Pfeiffer, Daschle spokesman, said the ad came from A Lot of People Supporting Tom Daschle, which has been the name of Daschle’s campaign committee for the past 25 years. The group, he said, is not a third party group, as stated in Wednesday’s story by a USD professor.

The professor may have been confused by the deceptive wording that the Daschle campaign used in the ad. Click on the image above to see for yourself the verbage from the bottom of the ad. You can barely see the 'Paid for by A Lot of People Supporting Tom Daschle'. Here is a link to the sources of the funding that paid for the ad. You will find A Lot of People Supporting Tom Daschle are outside South Dakota.

Tuesday’s MDR report also stated a similar ad ran on a local radio station. I heard the ad myself. There was a lady who seemed to represent MTI on the ad praising Tom Daschle. That person was Kristin Wisnowski. Amazingly she just happens to be a Democratic candidate for South Dakota District 20 House seat (Scroll down to District 20). Democratic candidate Wisnowski must have been on her own as she portrayed herself has a MTI representative based on statements made in today’s MDR by MTI’s director:

“MTI isn’t making an endorsement in the ad,” Chris Paustian, MTI director, said Wednesday. “We had nothing to do with the ad. We didn’t write it.”

Paustian said the local technical school neither permits nor denies permission to use the school in advertisements.

“It was their right to do it,” he said. “We’re not going to get caught in the middle of a political squabble.”

The ad, which ran most recently in Wednesday’s Daily Republic and has been broadcast over the past week on KORN Radio, credits Daschle for helping bring in nearly $500,000 to help the local technical school’s satellite technology program.

The fact that Daschle voted against this funding has been covered by myself and admitted to by the Daschle campaign:

Randy Frederick, state Republican Party chairman, called the recent Daschle ad “questionable” and said Daschle was taking credit for a bill he voted against.

Although Daschle put funding for MTI in the omnibus bill passed in January, he voted against the final bill because it delayed country-of-origin legislation on meats, Pfeiffer said.

“He could not vote for the final bill because it did not contain important provisions he supported,” Pfeiffer said.

So…we have the Daschle campaign running ads that are wrongly portrayed as MTI’s appreciation for funding…and funding that Daschle voted against. Now that is truly a negative ad. DVT has found similar tactics in Madison, SD.

Let’s not forget Jason Van Beek’s post that gave me the knowledge necessary to question and research this con job perpetrated by the Daschle campaign. As you look through the millions of funding in Jason’s post…one has to wonder how many more deceptive ads are currently running statewide and how many more are being planned. Especially note all the funding that went to Native Americans.