By Kevin Woster

One of my Democratic pals called this afternoon to rant about Herseth Sandlin.

He does that from time to time, usually when she votes in a way he considers unbecoming of an officer and gentlewoman of the party.

He was really worked up this time. It’s was her health-care vote. The big NO on the House plan.

My buddy is big on the Obama reform plan, and just about any version Democratic leaders want to push that has a public option.

So he got a bit feverish when he read that Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin announced this morning that she couldn’t vote for the current House version of health-care reform.

The nerve of that woman, he said, voting against a health-care reform plan by her Democratic leadership and her Democratic president.This one will cost her, he said, if not in outright Democratic votes for the Republican challenger, then at least in Democrats abstaining from voting for her.

Then, he said it: If she keeps voting like this, she should leave the Democratic Party.

Tough talk from a hard-core Democrat who, while pretty darn liberal, typically has a pretty solid head on his shoulders when it comes to appreciating the  pragmatic necessities of surviving as a Democrat in a Republican state.

There’s some of that in Herseth Sandlin’s political calculus these days. Maybe quite a bit. And I advised my Democratc buddy that her handling of this touchy issue probably makes pretty good political sense.

That mad him madder.

I also suggested that her opposition to the House plan (remember, she liked the Senate version a lot better) also might be based on legitimate criticism of that plan and even the views and preferences of a good number of her constituents.

That made him madder still. So mad he ended the conversation.

But it is possible, isn’t it? Stranger things have happened in Congress.

By Randall Rasmussen

Much is being made of the Republican victories for statehouses in Virginia and New Jersey.

Bob McDonnell crushed Creigh Deeds in Virginia, while Chris Christie knocked off incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey.

Given that New Jersey has been solidly Democrat for quite some time, Corzine’s defeat is surprising.

President Obama campaigned for both candidates, and they both lost. Is Obama losing his appeal?

Washington Post columnist David Broder thinks so.

Most elections revolve around pocketbook issues, and Tuesday’s elections are no different.

Whining that the sour economy is George W. Bush’s fault isn’t working any more.

Right or wrong, voters blame or credit the party in power for present economic conditions.

It’s Obamanomics that voters are voicing their displeasure for. If the economy continues like it has next year, the 2010 midterm elections could be a bloodbath for Democrats.

By Randall Rasmussen

 According to an Associated Press story, former Vice President Dick Cheney said “I don’t recall” 72 times during Patrick Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation into who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak. You can read the story here.

 The 72 “I don’t recall” answers is not even close to the record held by former President Bill Clinton who said “I don’t recall” 271 times during the investigation into Paula Jones’ sexual harassment allegations against Clinton. But it is a higher number than former first lady Hillary Clinton’s 50 “I don’t recall” answers during a House investigation on Whitewater.

 Was Cheney lying, or was he being shrewd?

 The leaker of Plame’s identity to Novak was former State Department deputy Richard Armitage. Fitzgerald knew Armitage was the leaker before he interviewed Cheney and his chief of staff Scooter Libby. It’s possible that Cheney knew that Fitzgerald was trolling for a perjury conviction and clammed up. Libby eventually was convicted of perjury, due to differences between his statements under oath and that of journalists for Time and the New York Times.

 You’ve got to love Dick Cheney using the Clinton defense strategy, though.

By Kevin Woster

When Mark Williams introduced himself as a regular on the Fox News Channel yesterday at the fairgrounds, the crowd went a little wild.

“Fox getting a standing ovation,” Williams beamed. “You got to love that.”

Clearly, the fairground events center was full of Fox fans for the Tea Party Express visit. One of the first signs visible upon entry said: “Thank God for (fair & balanced) Fox News.”

Well, I thank God and the First Amendment for all news outlets, and what they do.

Of course, Fox isn’t any more fair or balanced than any other station or network. And it could be a little less so than some in certain areas. But it also probably gives conservative viewers and listeners an angle or sense of perspective they won’t always find on most MSM stations and networks, which tend to be slanted at least slightly left of center - or, in the case of MSNBC, more than slightly.

So, in essence, it’s true that the Fox slant is filling a void in coverage left by the failures of the MSM, which is good. Unfortunately, Fox is overfilling it much of the time, which isn’t so good.

The most devout Fox followers  have convinced themselves that it’s the only news outlet that consistently tells the truth.

It’s not, any more than CNN or MSNBC or CBS or NPR  - or the Rapid City Journal - have a corner on the truth.

I watch Fox, along with many other news sources, and I feel like I get a pretty balanced idea of what’s what.

Zombie-like acceptance of one news outlet - whether it’s MSNBC, NPR or Fox - at the exclusion of all the others makes for unbalanced news consumption and malnourished political perspectives.

It’s also a sad waste of the rich diversity of news that’s available.

By Randall Rasmussen

Monday’s (Nov. 2) Wall Street Journal calls the Pelosi health care bill “The Worst Bill Ever” in its lead editorial. You can read it here.

The Journal writes that the so-called public option will provide a generous subsidy to low-income and even middle-class families earning up to $96,000 a year. Once everyone sees the sweet deal their neighbors are getting, a flood of people will switch to the government-run system – which is what the Democrats and President Obama want to see happen.

Taxes will soar, private insurance premiums will skyrocket – effectively killing the industry – the Medicare cuts can’t be realized leading to even more costs – the Journal estimates a $2 trillion cost over 10 years as a starting point.

Some excerpts: “All of this is intentional, even if it isn’t explicitly acknowledged. The overriding liberal ambition is to finish the work began decades ago as the Great Society of converting health care into a government responsibility.”

“Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

“Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of ‘change,’ but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo.”

Worth a read.

By Kevin Woster

Interesting stuff this week in a Washington Post story about ethics probes into members of a House appropriations subcommittee - including Democratic Chairman John Murtha - and their relationship with an influential lobbying firm.

An ethics investigation doesn’t necessarily mean that anybody’s guilty of anything. Still, the relationship between millions of dollars in government contracts channeled through earmarks to clients of the lobbying firm, PMA Group, and the number of campaign contributions received by members of the appropriations sub-committee from PMA clients  certainly seems to merit further scrutiny.

Following the money around Washington, D.C.,  makes for an interesting tour that is, too often, not a particularly inspirational one.

It’s one area where the the self-serving inclinations of some members always seem to cross party lines.

By Jerry Steinley

So is Sen. Joe Lieberman a habitual flip flopper or an American hero?
I gained a whole new disrespect for Lieberman in 2006 when, after losing the Democratic nomination, he registered as an independent and won. A real man of his convictions…
Now he’s using his independent status to generally thrash about Washington kowtowing to the right, left, right, left… you get the idea.
Just last year he lost the Democratic party backing after supporting presidential nominee John McCain. Promising to play nice — and as a Democrat would — he kept his position on the Commerce Committee.
Earlier this week he said he’d help Republicans kill — going as far as a filibuster — any health care bill that included a public option.
And now, ABC News reports Lieberman, I-Conn., has said he’ll stump for some Republicans in the 2010 midterms and may not seek the Democratic nomination in 2012.
From ABC News: He finds being an independent “liberating” because, You’re not tied to a particular inner group and feel that extra pressure to march in lockstep. I think that the public generally is fed up with all the partisanship, and us against them.”
Americans are tired of partisan politics. Can Lieberman, and others like him, be the solution? Or just create a bigger problem?

By Kevin Woster

All told, banks and I have gotten along well over the years.

I’ve borrowed and repaid their money for goods and services I wanted and needed, used their check, debit-card and savings services and only occasionally had a misunderstanding or dispute.

I love my debit card in particular. Simpler than checks, more immediate and automatic than credit cards, it’s a plastic ticket to quick purchases just about anywhere I go - without fear of losing a credit card bill, missing a payment and getting tagged with a penalty (which you can sometimes get removed, with a simple phone call.)

My experience is fairly typical, but far from universal. The House Committee on Financial Services is looking into the “far from universal” stories as it considers H.R. 627,  the Overdraft Protection Act.

Home with the flu or something, I watched some of the committee’s hearing on the bill this morning. And the act is supposed to do what is says - protect consumers from onerous overdrafts on purchases with checks and debit cards.

A key issue is what my bank calls a “ready reserve,” which is sort of an automatic cushion of several hundred dollars below the actual account balance. Write a check or buy something with the debit card for an amount that exceeds your balance and you go into the ready reserve, but for a price similar to an overdraft fee - $20, $30 or so. Each time you use it while in the red zone, you get charged again.

It can add up. The advantage is you don’t get a check bounced or a debit-card purchase denied, perhaps in an embarrassing public  situation. Apparently, that advantage - which is also very profitable to the bank, which is the whole idea - gets some consumers deeper into financial trouble.

Advocates of change say the consumer should be given a chance to opt into the ready reserve rather than being automatically included and having to ask to opt out, as is generally the case now.

That’s just part of the reform proposal. And it seems reasonable to me. I dislike automatic inclusions, especially when they involve my money. It’s hard for me to imagine, however,  that people could  buy a pizza and a beer, or pay for a tire repair,  and either not know or don’t not care that they don’t have the money in their account to cover it.

Especially more than once or twice.

But for those folks, this might be a place where government regulations can make a difference.

By Kevin Woster

It was a front-page story to make you cringe over your bran flakes.

One of Rapid City’s little-known (before Journal business editor Barb Soderlin’s story) businesses is run out of a private home off Sheridan Lake Road.

It sells Nazi stuff. Odd Hitler images, flags and replicas of grenades and, uh, poison gas canisters are among the items available on Michael Kelly’s internet shop.

It’s just merchandise, not hateful propaganda, says Kelly, who claims no Nazi sympathies but rather a business mind that found a niche market that works.

“I look at everybody as one color: green,” he told Barb.

Here on Mount Blogmore, we believe in free enterprise and free speech.

But we’re not quite sure what to believe about this.

By Randall Rasmussen

The Federal Communications Commission is considering issuing what it calls net neutrality regulations. Supposedly it will ensure that the internet is open to all.

However, there are some who don’t think it’s a good idea for the FCC to wade into regulating the Internet.

 Among them, Sen. John Thune, who sent out a press release last week about the proposed network neutrality rules, saying they could hinder private investment in broadband networks, reduce the safety of online activity, and harm consumers and businesses that rely on reliable broadband access.

“Broadband access gives businesses and schools greater opportunities to excel,” said Thune. “Unfortunately, there are many areas, particularly in rural states like South Dakota, without adequate access to broadband networks. Expanding broadband to rural areas and improving broadband across the country will require continued private sector investment of hundreds of billions of dollars. New regulations on the Internet would likely stifle this investment and eventually harm consumers who rely on access to quality broadband.”

Thune and other senators sent a letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. The link to the letter is from Sen. John Kyl’s Web site.

The Internet has made a wealth of knowledge and information available to more people than at any time in history.

The question is: Is the FCC’s proposal to regulate the Internet to ensure “free and open access” needed or is it a smokescreen for government to assert control over what has always been largely unfettered access to the Internet by the masses.

What say you, Mount Blogmore dudes and dudettes?

By Randall Rasmussen

 Remember when the Iraq War was heating up and the media would make sure they got a picture of President George W. Bush playing golf so they could air it while they announced how many U.S. soldiers were killed that day?

 The media’s juxtaposition of him playing golf while American soldiers were dying finally got to him and Bush announced he would quit playing golf while the war was going.

 Critics and pundits howled with derision. I Googled “Bush, golf, war” and got almost 8 million hits.

 Politico.com did a story on Monday that President Barack Obama has played as many rounds of golf in nine months as Bush played in nearly three years — 24.

 Not that you’d see a photo of the duffer-in-chief as he takes a mulligan on a decision on Afghanistan war strategy.

 However, on Sunday, the day after the New York Times did a story about how President Obama doesn’t include any girls in his sports outings, the White House made sure to have Melody Barnes, Obama’s chief domestic policy adviser, carry a bag of golf clubs out of the White House in front of an AP photographer before joining a round of golf with the president.

 Round of golf with a woman: mission accomplished.

 Decision on Gen. Stanley McCrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan: still dithering.

By Kevin Woster

And back here on the home front, Dave Knudson has a new campaign manager.

Jim Hagen, former chief of staff and campaign manager for Bill Janklow, will start with the Knudson campaign for governor on Nov. 16, after resigning his job as director of development and public relations for Crazy Horse Memorial.

Hagen did that job from LA, with regular trips back to Crazy Horse.  Soon he’ll trade LA for Sioux Falls - hopefully with plenty of cash and a villa on the Big Sioux as part of the deal - and be back in the state at the helm of the U.S.S. Knudson.

“I’ve had interest from several campaigns, but I definitely feel very, very strongly about David’s candidacy,” Hagen said. “I’m excited about coming back and helping out.”

Knudson will drop his consulting relationship with Nevada-based political pro Mike Slanker.

“By the nature of their work, campaign consultants are involved with multiple campaigns,” Knudson said. “I felt like we needed a full-time, day-t-o-day campaign manager. Jim is going to come back and run the campaign for us.”

When asked if this trade was a plus or minus financially for the campaign, Knudson referred questions to his campaign manager.

Who hasn’t started yet.

Crafty.

Actually, he simply declined comment.

By Kevin Woster

Even the Cowardly Lion believes in global warming.

Wait, scratch that. He believes in witches, or flying monkeys,  or ruby slippers. I can’t remember which.

But maybe not global warming.

Apparently, neither do more than 40 percent of Americans.

A Pew Research poll reported by AP shows 57 percent of us believe the planet is warming, down 20 percent from a few years ago.

Why? I’m guessing it’s because things cooled off for a lot of people. If you live in South Dakota, for example, and take a superficial view of the climate, as I love to do, you might sit shivering in your chair and question the whole global warming thing.

It was prett nippy around here this year, after all. Pretty wet in most places, too.

So it’s easy to reach conclusions on global warming or climate change like those you might hear from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.

Simple. One-sided. Full of sound and fury and signifiying, well, not all that much most of the time - except for great ratings.

I think the climate-change issue is a lot like most issues that matter: It’s complicated - more complicated by far than most of the high-pitched oversimplifiers would have us believe.

 I tend to think, based on what I’ve read, that the planet is warming. The larger issue is why? How much is us and our appetite for fossil fuels? How much are we willing to spend on a smaller carbon footprint? How much will it help? How soon and aggressively do we need to act?

But on the main issue of a warming world, isn’t that already settled?

By Kevin Woster

As the battle goes on in Congress over health-care reform, the insurance industry has landed the latest blow with data that shows profits are far from outrageous when compared to other industries.

In fact, the 2.3 percent to 6 percent figures - the 2.3 percent being in recent hard times, I think - on profit margins make the company appear to be positively reasonable in its money making.

Do you buy it? Or figure it’s slanted stuff, disguising higher profits?

I tend to trust AP, which reported on the data, until somebody shows otherwise. Although they’re human like all of us.

If it’s legit, the profits information helps drive - for now, at least -the argument on rising health-care costs away from the bad-guy insurance industry and back toward doctors, health care systems and government rules and regulations, as well as the generally terrible personal health-care habits of this nation.

The insurance folks needed something, as they continue to be regarded badly by the public and polling lately indicates more public support for a government-run insurance option, and perhaps more hope for those who believe in it.

Where’s Obama in all this? Not as deeply involved as some Democrats in Congress would like, according a report by  The New Republic’s Jonathan  Cohn, who says Democratic senators in particular are looking for some muscle from the White House.

One of my favorite commentators, Tavis Smiley, said yesterday on Meet the Press that Obama will be judged by his leadership on difficult issues. And certainly this is difficult.

With crunch time approaching on health care reform, we’ll see if this is one where the man in the White House really steps up and takes a hard public swing, or accepts less than the staunchest reform advocates want.

By Kevin Woster

That could be the compromise. The trigger.

Appearing on Meet the Press this morning, Joe Scarborough said Barack Obama’s White House team has made it known that they like the idea of a “trigger” as the fall-back position on the government-run health care option preferred by many Democrats.

The trigger option would be delayed implementation of the government option, likely based on some criteria for cost controls by the private insurance industry. If the industry didn’t respond appropriately over a certain time period, the trigger would kick in and the government-run health insurance option would take effect.

Scarborough said Obama likes the trigger because it gives some cover to moderates, including Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition in the House. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is one of the Blue Dog leaders, and would benefit from such cover.

Herseth Sandlin is in a tough spot on this one. Voting for the government option leaves her open to the socialized-medicine charge by conservatives in a state where the idea has received a mixed response. Voting against it further alienates her from her party’s left wing.

She must like the trigger both as a reasonable compromise in policy and, especially, as a relatively safe middle-ground on an issue that’s anything but safe for her.

By Randall Rasmussen

The White House tried to escalate its war with Fox News Thursday by preventing the network’s correspondent from attending a news conference featuring the pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg. He was announcing his plan to cut the pay of top executives of firms that have received bailouts.

The rest of the media, however, stood by Fox News against the White House’s effort to feeze them out.

They probably realized that it would be a bad precedent to let the president of the United States get away with retaliating against a news organization because he doesn’t like what they are reporting about his administration.

The next time, it could be one of them.

Bravo, to the press corps for standing up to the White House’s attempt to swallow up the freedom of the press.

Here’s the link.

By Randall Rasmussen

When first lady Michelle Obama flew to Copenhagen for the failed Chicago Olympics presentation, she flew in her own jet, instead of on Air Force One with her husband, President Barack Obama.

Why? Well, it may be because she has her own entourage.

An e-mail that is going around claims that Michelle Obama has at least 26 staff members working for her in the White House, starting from Chief of Staff Susan Sher at a salary of $172,000. The e-mail claims that the number of staff assigned to the first lady is “unprecedented” and costs U.S. taxpayers more than $1.2 million.

The story originates from the Canada Free Press. You can read it here.

Factcheck.org did its own investigation. It found that Michelle Obama has a staff of 24 with an annual salary of $1.6 million.

However, a large staff for first ladies is not unprecedented, according to Factcheck.org. Laura Bush had a staff of 18 with a total cost of $1.4 million.

I think the story is overblown. First ladies are not on salary, but they often stand in for the president on official functions. They make speeches, they attend functions and ceremonies that the president hasn’t the time for, or are not important enough for the POTUS. Of course, they require a staff.

However, I don’t think first ladies need as many people at their beck and call as they have had in recent administrations, both Democrat and Republican.

For that matter, I’m inclined to believe that the federal government, from the White House on down, has too many people working for it, often for the same purposes in many departments and agencies.

Michelle Obama may have a too-large, too-expensive staff, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. Unlike her husband, Michelle Obama has no power.

By Kevin Woster

Investigative political reporting involves a lot of back-channel snooping, herculean efforts on the telephone and crafty source development at secluded tables in the back corners of shady cafes.

Or, you just check your e-mail.

I did one or the other last week - you guess which - and came up with a copy of Glen Bolger’s recent poll of 400 likely GOP voters in next year’s Republican governor’s primary.

Guess what? They liked Rounds. Who’da figured?

Almost 70 percent of those surveyed said South Dakota is headed in the right direction; 83 percent gave the governor a favorable rating; and 81 percent said they think the next governor should continue Rounds’ policies.

(No, it’s not true that the polling phone banks were staffed entirely by members of the Rounds family, although they could been, going strictly by staffing potential…)

Among GOP candidates, state Sen. Dave Knudson had the highest name ID, with 70 percent. After that it was Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard, 58 percent, Scott Munsterman, 45 percent, and Ken Knuppe 32 percent.

But Dauggard won in the favorable department, with 32 percent to 1 percent unfavorable; Knudson was 26 percent to 7, Munsterman 10 percent to 3 percent and Knuppe 8 percent to 3 percent.

And a pretty impressive 26 percent said the would vote for Daugaard, followed by Knudson with 9 percent, Munsterman 6 percent and Knuppe 3 percent, leaving the majority of GOP voters still undecided and confused (OK, I threw in the “confused” part on my own.).

Knudson also loses with the GOP voters surveyed on the abortion issue, where he’s pro-choice. Likewise he loses out on guns, where his “D” rating from the NRA - which, frankly, can be based on a single issue or vote that the, uh, somewhat demanding organization decided was absolutely defining - may or may not move most South Dakotans, especially Democrats and Independents, should he reach the general.

But enough editorializing (God bless the NRA! Uh, sometimes…). The NRA grade - which is the same one I got in two semesters of editing class at SDSU - isn’t great for Knudson in a Republic primary. But it’s worth nothing that Knudson has been awarded the 2009 legislator conservationist award by the South Dakota Wildlife Federation. That’s not the same as a gubernatorial endorsement, as Chris Hesla points out below. But it’s clearly a sign of respect from SDWF, and they’re not exactly anti-gun.

Still, Bolger’s Public Opinion Strategies produced a nice package of polling data that has to make Daugaard - a member of the Rounds team - feel pretty good. It should, of course, since his campaign paid for it.

Which doesn’t mean the results aren’t valid. Or that they shouldn’t worry the other candidates, Knudson in particular. But it would be interesting to see how the questions were framed.

It always is.

By Jerry Steinley

Fox News and President Obama just can’t get along and, in true first grade fashion, the dispute has escalated to a point it has become a national issue and a national embarrasment. President Obama — a cool character during the election — has taken off the gloves and declared battle on Fox.
It’s been a tit for tat for some time. Fox has been especially critical of Obama and the president has slighted the news organization in return. But who started it? And who is adult enough to say enough is enough?
My guess — neither.
Great for Fox, great for news, but real bad for the president. How can a president — a public servant — declare a news channel an adversary? It doesn’t only make him look bad, but childish, vindictive and egotistical.
This from the Huffington Post:
“It is rather odd to pick this fight with Fox News. All it does is elevate
their commentators and anchors to a level that people might tune in to see what all the fuss is about. Why in the world would the White House want to give this network any publicity at all?”
And, pulling no punches, Sen. Lamar Alexander, a leading Republican in the Senate, in the Washington Post:
The Obama administration is creating “an enemies list,” similar to the
Nixon administration. “This behavior is typical of street brawls and political campaign consultants,” Alexander said. “It is a mistake for the president of the United States and the White House staff.”
There’s no way Obama can win this public relations battle… or is there?
Let me know what you think and how this tale will unfold and, hopefully, end.

Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, for a noon live chat with Larry Mann. Mann is the principal of Mann Strategies, Inc. a government and public affairs consulting company. He was retained by a coalition including Music and Vending Association, Video Lottery Establishments, Deadwood Gaming Association and the South Dakota Licensed Beverage Dealers Association through a ballot question committee called Citizen’s for Individual Freedom to coordinate the public smoking petition drive.

If you’ve got questions, Mann will have answers.