By Randall Rasmussen

A Sunday Associated Press story says supporters of a medical marijuana law plan to ask the Legislature to pass such a measure.

The 2005 Legislature rejected a bill to legalize marijuana for medical use, and voters nearly passed a 2006 initiative.

Occasional Mount Blogmore responder Bob Newland of Hermosa is featured in the story.

Good idea? Bad idea?

I think the reasons the drug is illegal are just as valid today as they ever were.

Here is the AP story:

BC-SD–Medicinal Marijuana,0245

New pot plan may be hatched

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Supporters of a medical marijuana law in South Dakota are preparing to ask the 2009 Legislature to reconsider the issue.
After the 2005 Legislature rejected a bill to legalize the use of marijuana for legitimate health problems, a 2006 ballot measure drew 48 percent support.
Bob Newland of Hermosa, who has pushed the issue for years, says marijuana can be a savior for people undergoing cancer treatment, dealing with glaucoma, or experiencing severe or chronic pain or nausea.
“That 48 percent is a pretty big hammer to take to the Legislature,” he said.
Newland said he’s convinced that if the issue returns to the ballot, voters will approve it. That makes it likely that legislators will be more receptive to a real debate over the issue than happened in 2005, he said.
The law enforcement community, however, opposes the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
State Attorney General Larry Long says it would open the door for more illegal marijuana use. Even if South Dakota passed such a law, he argued in 2005 that growth, possession and use of marijuana still would be illegal under federal law.
Under the proposal, a patient could use marijuana if a doctor signed a recommendation saying that cannabis use would benefit the patient. The 2006 ballot initiative limited a qualifying patient to no more than six marijuana plants and one ounce of usable marijuana.

By Kevin Woster

Come on, where’s the sugar for the newspaper business?

Think the banks and the auto makers are the only ones suffering these days? What about us? We’re in a pitched battle for economic survival, too, so why isn’t the government giving us a multi-billion-dollar newsprint parachute?

Even the aggies get a few disaster payments when things go south. And the farm groups get those price supports and deficiency payments.

How about a little subscription support and maybe an advertising stimulus package for us?

Come on, Congress, where’s the love?

By Kevin Woster

I stand corrected. Some of the boys CAN shoot straight.

On roosters, too.

Here’s a story, inspired by the thread below, from one of my most reliable sources of governor’s hunts past - former GF&P information-education supervisor Chuck Post:

“Here’s another Citibank story of interest. One of the biggies hopped the private jet in NY. Janklow was in contact while he was in flight and told him to get in his hunting clothes. They landed in Pierre and the Citibank biggie was put in a helicopter and flown to Presho. After landing, Janklow picked him up in his motorhome and called ahead to have the last drive of the day held up so this guy could get in on it. They arrived in a Janklow cloud of dust. Ed Nielson (then GF&P licensing supervisor) wrote him out a license, he got postioned on the last drive, shot three pheasants, hopped in Janklow’s motorhome and headed for Pierre.”

Now that’s pheasant hunting.

CitiStyle.

By Kevin Woster

Actually, that headline is unfair. Tom Theobald shot straight right in front of me once during Gov. Bill Janklow’s invitational pheasant hunt.

And he killed a hen.

I wrote about that for the Argus Leader back in, oh, maybe 1981 or 1982. At that time, Theobald was a big shot for the big-shot gang at the hunt - Citicorp, and its in-state version, Citibank of South Dakota. Theobald might have been Citicorp VP, for something, I can’t remember what.

But I tagged along with his group with a camera and notebook during the gov’s hunt, and wrote about the day, including the hen pheasant he shot. Theobald seemed like a nice fellow, and he was entirely up front about the hen - once somebody explained to him what he’d done. (I think it was me).

When an obliging landowner’s son wanted to ditch the hen in a pickup box, Theobald wouldn’t hear of it. He said he wanted to do what was right. So he told a GF&P guy, and ended up paying a fine, as I recall.

I was impressed by that. (I never turned myself in for the two hens I shot, back in my younger days …) But Gov. Bill was less than thrilled with my story. He expressed his feelings in emphatic Janklow style in a phone call on the Monday following the hunt. Ah, those were the days., when a call from the governor could produce a pulse rate well into the cardio range, and blood pressure of about 190 over 110.

Reporters just don’t get that kind of emotional workout with Mike Rounds. We’re getting out of shape.

But back to Citicorp, or bank, or group. An old Game, Fish & Parks buddy reminded me this week that back in the early ’80s, the CitiBiggies used to fly to South Dakota in separate private jets, two or three separate jets, I think. That was because they were considered too valuable to risk losing all at once in the event of a plane crash.

I think that’s why the Argus sometimes sent me and photographer Lloyd B. Cunningham to assignments in different vehicles - me in my Chevette, him in that old Ford pickup. We were too valuable to risk losing at once.

I think Cunningham and I have maintained our relative level of value. Likewise, the CitiBigs predecessors still rank pretty high, given the green parachute they’re going to get from the federal government. I suppose it’s essential. They’re awfully big and awfully intertwined in our financial affairs.

And as I sit here typing away in my brother Jim’s basement in Sioux Falls, with a Citibank center employing 3,200 just across town, I certainly understand the value of what they bring to communities.

But I also can’t help thinking about those governor’s hunts past, and how the CitiBigs would fly in on corporate jets, decked out in the best duds from Cabelas or LL Bean or Eddie Bauer, with shotguns the rest of us might only dream about, and get driven in style to the easiest pheasant hunting on earth.

And they still couldn’t hit much of anything.

Well, there was that hen.

By Kevin Woster

A freeze on state-government hiring, out-of-state travel and large purchases?

Absolutely, Gov. Mike Rounds said. Times are tough, and Rounds said state government should do what a typical family does: cut back, rather than dip into savings.

That means a near-freeze, actually on new hires in the executive branch. Apparently there’s some wiggle room in specific instances.

It means only “critical” travel out of state will be authorized. And only essential purchases of larger capital items, such as computers and other equipment, will be allowed.

Sounds reasonable to me. Does it go far enough? What else might be done to save $$$$$$?

By Randall Rasmussen

Barack Obama’s economic team was officially announced Monday, and they are reportedly working on a $500 billion economic stimulus package that they want to present to Congress in January and have it ready for his signature as soon as he is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

The package is said to be a combination of federal spending and tax cuts, and goes far beyond the $175 billion he proposed during the campaign. The Wall Street Journal reported on this Monday here. This is in addition to the $700 billion that Congress passed in October to rescue financial markets.

How is all this going to be paid for? Obama said Monday that the economic stimulus would take priority over deficit concerns. Apparently, it won’t be paid for.

The question is, can we afford it?

The combined cost of the bailout and the proposed stimulus plan is $1.2 trillion, which is about one-third of the total federal budget.

The cure may be worse than the disease.

An interesting angle on this is the advancement of Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin to the No. 3 position with the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate to conservative Democrats. Their major emphasis is for fiscal discipline and an adherence to the Pay-Go rules, where increases in spending or tax cuts have to be offset with cuts in spending.

The Blue Dogs could exert a tremendous influence on budget proposals coming from the Obama administration, especially if they add significantly to the deficit.

Will Herseth Sandlin oppose Obama’s spending plans as excessive? She voted against the $700 billion bailout, and I’d be disappointed if she went along with another huge spending plan.

New presidents often get what they ask for in the first months of their administration, but a $500 billion stimulus plan may be more than many members of Congress will swallow.

By Kevin Woster

He’ll be the meanest junkyard dog of a press secretary to ever hit the South Dakota Capitol.

In announcing today that he has hired AP reporter Joe “Don’t Mess Around with Me” Kafka to replace Mitch “Hey, Pal, May I Get You A Cup of Coffee?” Krebs as his press secretary, Gov. Mike Rounds gave an indication of an ever-so-slight change in tone in the governor’s office.

Smilin’ Mike and Scowlin’ Joe. What a team.

It’ll work, of course, because Joe’s a top-notch news guy with four decades of reporting experience, half of it in Pierre. He knows state government, and how to construct a proper sentence.

But it’ll still be a bit different at the press conferences, which will go something like this:

“OK, you guys, pipe down and don’t ask any dumb questions. Get your feet of the table. And don’t insinuate that the big guy is lying, either, or I’ll stuff your pencil in your ear.

“Coffee? We got no stinking coffee. What, you never heard of Folgers? Next time bring your own.”

Or something like that.

What I’m saying is, there’s a new sheriff in town. And he’s packin’.

Or, as Jim Croce might have sung it:

“You don’t tug on Super Mike’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Governor
And you don’t mess around with Jim, er, Joe…

“Da do da da-da-da-da-da…”

By Kevin Woster

The guy still amazes me.

Tom Daschle, I mean.

It took him most of the day Wednesday to reply to my e-mail last week. That’s the longest wait I’ve ever had for a Daschle response. This one turned out to be a non-response, as expected. Daschle said there wasn’t anything he could say at that time.

I’d asked through e-mail for confirmation and comment about reports that he was Barack Obama’s choice for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Of course, a few other people had sent e-mails on that subject, too.

We all know what that’s like, to get bombarded by 10 or 20 e-mails. Some days, I get 40 or more. It’s pretty tough to keep up.

Daschle? Well, his e-mail bombardments come at different level, especially when he’s being discussed for a cabinet post.

“I am sitting here answering the more than 400 e-mails I have gotten since this broke this morning,” he wrote Wednesday evening.

I’m pretty sure some of those e-mail came from big shot reporters at larger media outlets. Yes, that’s right, Dave Kranz.

OK, there might have been others as well. Such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. And, of course, all the major TV networks. And the Associated Press.

Throw in contacts that almost certainly came from current and former members of Congress, major Daschle contributors, tribal and business leaders with national profiles and influence, and close friends and family.

In the middle of that torrent, my little Rapid City Journal e-mail canoe bounced and dipped and eventually found port in a Daschle response, and a promise to do an interview at the appropriate time. He’ll keep that promise. He always has.

Daschle doesn’t forget. And he doesn’t ignore. Sometimes that means staying up past midnight and rising well before dawn to get done what he gets done. It often does, in fact.

My answered e-mail is a small thing in all of that. But it’s a big thing, too. Because it shows who this guy is and how he operates – how he has operated, in fact, for the 30 years I have known him.

Setting the particulars of political philosophy aside, most of us agree that our health-care system needs an overhaul. That will be a mammoth undertaking, the leader of which will need iron resolve, perpetual energy and an unrelenting commitment to responsiveness and responsibility.

That’s the Tom Daschle I’ve known for decades, the guy who answered every one of those 400 e-mails before he went to bed.

By Kevin Woster

As most of you know by now, I’m almost never right on politican predictions.

It’s really quite amazing, when you think about it, that somebody who covers politics, at least part time, and pays attention to politics, most of the time, can be so consistently wrong in predicting what will happen in politics.

The more I know, the more I’m wrong.

So here comes Steve McEnroe, trying to shoot down by prediction that Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin will run for governor in 2010. And he’s doing it before I even make the prediction.

For those who don’t know McEnroe, he’s a former Journal photographer and long-time George Bush supporter. (Pause….pause…pause…OK…It’s a joke, McEnroe, so put down the telephoto lens!) Actually, McEnroe’s the anti-Bush, which is different, of course, from the anti-Obama.

McEnroe reads that there Daily Kos blog pretty much, well, daily. And he sent along part of a story from the Kos indicating that Barack Obama may be considering Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and our own Stephanie Herseth Sandlin for secretary of agriculture.

Peterson’s mention didn’t surprise me much. He’s a big name in House ag business. And a big farmer, too. I was a little surprised by Herseth Sandlin’s mention. Not that she wouldn’t make a good ag secretary. She’s bright, Blue Dog and articulate, and she certainly understands agriculture. (Nice job, Lars.)

But for some reason, I thought she seemed too young - in age and years served - to get that kind of consideration.

But maybe not.

I haven’t given up on that governor’s race in 2010, however. In fact, I’m tempted to bet dinner on it.

Anybody got Denise’s phone number? Maybe she’ll go double or nothing.

By Kevin Woster

What’s the best thing about being mostly housebound for a day or two with an intestinal virus marked by episodic intensity?

What’s that? Pepto-Bismol?

OK then, what’s the next-best thing?

Exactly: C-Span.

First it was the Big Three CEOs and their $25 billion emergency loan request. Then it was the Senate’s group hug to Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a now-convicted felon who - it might be easy to forget - also was a much-decorated World War II pilot and influential congressional advocate who helped shape a state that was barely a decade old when he took office through an appointment almost 40 years ago.

I was less shocked and even less appalled than the national news reporters and commentators - once-different news beings who seem to blend in increasingly unhealthy ways - to learn that the Big Three execs arrived by private jet.

So, who thought they’d be flying commercial? Not that it wouldn’t make a fun scene:

Cordial flight attendant: “We’ll be landing in Washington soon, Mr. Nardelli. Could you please wake Mr. Wagoner and ask Mr. Mulally to extinguish his cell phone? Did you gentlemen enjoy your complimentary peanuts?”

Probably not.

But I suppose it did seem unseemly, given their hands-out mission, for the boys to fly the friendly skies of self-indulgent luxury as many who buy their cars and trucks struggle to make the payments.

Given what I know and what I heard, I still have the impression that higher labor costs in the United States - including and maybe especially continued health benefits to hundreds of thousands of former workers - are a big owwie for the Big Three. So were 25 years or so of lame-brained management decisions, including a a rejection of electric cars, slow-and-grudging advances in fleet mileage and a self-centered and short-sighted love-affair with big, gas-guzzling formerly profitable and popular SUVs.

And then the national economy blew a piston. And the Big Three came to a repair shop called Congress.

If we can believe what they say, which is always an interesting question, they face failure without the cash. And they do provide a lot of jobs, and an important economic base for the national economy, so …uh, well…

As for Stevens, I was touched by the emotional tributes by so many of his Senate colleagues, from both parties and the independent Lieberman.

All praised his many accomplishments over the years. Many urged him to stand tall, and fight for his name, to stay active in public service and know that his commitment to his state and nation would stand the test of time, and overshadow in historical perspective his recent problems.

I wonder if that’s true?

By Randall Rasmussen

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota has accepted President-elect Barack Obama’s offer to be secretary of Health and Human Services.

From Politico:

“Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) will be secretary of health and human services in the Obama administration, with the delicate mission of shepherding a health care bill through Congress at a time of punishing budget constraints, two senior Democratic officials said.

“Of all the proposals that Obama wants to enact, health care requires the most input and tough negotiations,” one of the Democratic officials said. “No one knows the House and Senate like Tom Daschle.”

Daschle, who will be 61 next month, will focus on what the official called the “30,000-foot” part of the job, with powerful deputies handling day-to-day matters. “He’s going to do the broader perspective,” the official said.

Daschle was an early mentor of Obama’s, encouraging the freshman senator to consider running for president despite the long odds. Daschle helped line up support for Obama in the Senate — and after losing his reelection fight in 2004, Daschle sent his key operatives and aides to work for Obama in his Senate office and his presidential campaign.”

Daschle recently penned a book on health care, “Critical: What We Can do About the Health-Care Crisis,” which makes him ideally qualified to head the HHS.

I haven’t read his book, but Daschle is a proponent of a national health care system. I’m not sure how much federal involvement he advocates, whether it’s managed by the federal government with private insurors or if the government pays for everything. Anyone read his book?

I may not agree on all of his ideas on health care, but I do think he’ll be a good secretary of HHS.

By Randall Rasmussen

According to The Guardian U.K., Sen. Hillary Clinton has been offered and will accept President-elect Barack Obama’s offer to become his Secretary of State.

You can read it here. The story hasn’t been confirmed and hasn’t been in a U.S. paper that I can tell, so it may not be true. But, what the heck?

Obama and Clinton did meet in private on Thursday, and it has been reported that the Clintons are being vetted for something.

What could it be?

Wouldn’t Hillary love being Secretary of State? Plus, you’d get two for the price of one, meaning Bill Clinton, of course.

Obama is said to be a great fan of the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, “Team of Rivals,” about Abraham Lincoln placing political foes on his Cabinet.

It’s been said that Obama even wants a Republican on his Cabinet. Hey, how about former Sen. Larry Pressler? He voted for Tim Johnson; he probably voted for Obama, too. He’s perfect!

Seriously, by making HRC madame Secretary of State, Obama ensures that she would work for his administration instead of against it – for two years at least.

As Michael Corleone said: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

By Kevin Woster

I’m with Susan Stamberg.

Like her, I’m sad that the weekly presidential radio messages will now be on YouTube.

Geez.

Barack Obama gave the Democratic radio address this week, and put it on YouTube. And he’ll continue, after taking office, with his weekly radio messages, on YouTube, too.

NPR’s Stamberg is understandably concerned about that. And, predictably, she thinks the direct, radio messages - based on the power of the spoken word alone - are a better medium for presidents to communicate with the nation, without the theater of visuals.

Obviously, she’s defending her own medium. But she’s also right.

I watched the message this week. It was pretty good.

The president elect looks comfortingly presidential facing the camera with a easy-yet-serious expression, an American flag on his right and an American-flag pin on his left lapel (I’m glad we’ve settled that issue. The lapel pin will stay.)

And he made thought-provoking points about the need for meaningful economic stimulus, help for those who have lost their jobs and remain unemployed and an aggressive job-creation agenda.

I managed to absorb the message, even though I was distracted from time to time by the picture of a scantily-attired young woman in an alluring pose displayed on the screen to the right of the president. Apparently she was selling “YouTubeLive: Part concert. Part party. All YouTube.”

Uh-huh.

I’m not quite sure what YouTubeLive is. But it’s a far media cry from FDR’s Fireside Chats.

I guess that’s the age we live in, and the president who has fully embraced it.

The YouTube age. A place for hot babes, and words from the White House.

By Kevin Woster

Soon it will be broken-promise time for President-elect Barack Obama.

And, we hope, kept-promise time as well.

No politician can live up to all the promises he or she makes on the campaign trail. If they manage most, it’s a roaring success.

What key promises do you think Obama will keep? And break?

For starters, will he be able to implement his health-care-for-darn-near- everyone plan, without raising taxes on us - meaning most of us, the non-rich?

Will he get out of Iraq as quickly and smoothly as his biggest fans expect?

Can he do anything to right the nation’s foundering economic ship?

Can he make the switch to a military focus on Afghanistan from Iraq, as he has said he would?

And the bonus question: Who will be the new president’s most reliable ally in the U.S. Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton or John McCain?

By Randall Rasmussen

In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy comes to a fork in the Yellow Brick Road, and she asks the Scarecrow, which way to Oz?

The Scarecrow waves his arms and then points both directions.

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that the administration was no longer going to use the $700 billion bailout for its original purpose -– buying bad assets from banks –- and was going to use the money instead to shore up banks, credit-card, auto-loan and other nonbank businesses.

Democrats, meanwhile, want some of the money to aid automakers.

Wall Street reacted by diving ever deeper, the Dow losing 411 points.

I opposed the bailout as an unnecessary intrusion by government into the markets. Letting poorly-run businesses fail is how our markets work. Under bankruptcy laws, they would actually remain in operation to try to save the sinking ship.

The rush by the administration and Congress to pass an emergency spending bill in the middle of an election campaign that added nearly a trillion dollars to the national debt was another good reason to slow down and assess the situation.

It now appears that Paulson has no idea what to do.

It also appears that Sen. Tim Johnson and Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin made the right call to vote against the bailout. Sen. John Thune, who should have been a stronger advocate against a massive government bailout scheme, may have made a mistake in supporting an over-reaction to a faltering economy.

Paulson says the bailout was needed to prevent a recession. Well, what of it? Economic recessions are a normal process in free market economies. Government intervention could make things worse. Throwing money at a problem is all that Congress and government bureaucrats know what to do, and it rarely succeeds.

What Congress has done is give a clueless government official in Paulson a huge pile of money to throw around in the hopes that if enough of it lands in the right place, something positive will happen.

“With the thoughts you’d be thinkin’
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain.”

Like everyone else who meets Jacob Moser, Sen. Tim Johnson was positively delighted. Johnson, his wife, Barb, and their grandson, Peneal, attended a charitable supper and auction to raise money for a new, highly accessible room in the Moser home for Jacob.

By Kevin Woster

Leave it up to the women.

Last year, attendees at the First Annual Mount Blogmore-Take It Outside Invitational Hunt at the Nick and Mary Jo Nemec farm near Holabird threw some money in a hat and donated it to a local charity.

This year, we wanted to do more. So we sought help from Mary Jo. And she got together with the women of Highmore, and decided to do something good for Jacob Moser and his family.

Next thing you know, more than 300 people turned out to eat, donate and bid on auction items. And pretty soon the Moser family had $18,000 toward a new room on their home that - with donated labor - will be completely handicap-accessible. And that will make life easier for them, and their 8-year-old son, Jacob.

Jacob’s physical disabilities are many. His spirit, however, is singularly strong. And his grin is absolutely infectious. Tim and Barb Johnson found that out Sunday when they attended the supper and auction at the Highmore auditorium.

The South Dakota senator’s presence, given his own continuing battle with physical impairments, was especially important to the event and inspirational for the Mosers. But it was Johnson who was inspired the most, by Jacob as well as the community that turned out to support him.

You can tell a lot about a community by the way it helps its own, Johnson said. And the supper said plenty about Highmore.

Jacob had plenty to say, too, as he cruised around the auditorium in his electric wheelchair, offering two of the most meaningful words of all: “Thank you.”

He repeated it over and over, with that smile.

Sure, pal. But the biggest thanks goes to you, for being who you are.

Jacob Moser gives a big thank-you to more than 300 people in the Hyde County Auditorium in Highmore Sunday evening.

Barb Johnson keeps an eye on the Mount Blogmore photographer as she and the senator and staffer Matt Varilek listen to Nick Nemec talk about the goals of the fundraiser.

Johnson, Nemec and Father Paul of St. Mary’s Catholic Church chat shortly before the supper.

From left in back, Sen. Tim Johnson, Jacob’s parents, Shannon and
Lawrence, Barb Johnson and grandson, Peneal. Front, Jacob and his sisters, clockwise, Courtney, Desiree and Kimberly.

In this photo released by the White House, President Bush and President-elect Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday in Washington. (AP photo)

By Randall Rasmussen

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush hosted the next occupants of the White House on Monday. President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, paid a call on the first family in what has become a political ritual and symbol of the peaceful transition of power that is a hallmark of democracies.

Bush and Obama provided a photo-op for reporters, then spent a couple of hours in the Oval Office, just the two of them. They reportedly discussed the war and the financial crisis, two of the many issues facing the country that Bush will hand off to Obama on Jan. 20.

Meanwhile, Laura and Michelle toured the residence area of the White House, where the Obamas will live for at least the next four years.

The meeting is symbolic of our nation’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power that occurs every four or eight years.

Obama ran against Bush’s “failures” as much as he ran against John McCain. There was no sign of any acrimony from the harsh campaign rhetoric that helped make Obama the nation’s 44th president.

I join most Americans in hoping that Obama’s presidency succeeds. He will be, after all, our country’s president for the next four years.

By Kevin Woster

I’ve had to eat crow before following major elections, but this year has turned into a pretty cawful smorgasbord.

There’s the Botticelli’s thing with Denise Ross, of course. And Tyler over at Badlands Blue informed me on election night that I owed him a fast-food meal as well.

That same night, Jim Leach replayed in stunning and impressive detail every reason I ever uttered about why Obama wouldn’t beat Clinton in the primary and couldn’t beat anyone the Republicans chose in the general.

Then there’s the Duffy boys. To paraphrase myself, there’s no way that America will elect a presidential candidate that Padraic, Conor and Sean Duffy all support. No way. Forget it. Ain’t gonna happen.

Whoops.

Shows you what I know, once again.

In that regard, let’s recap just a few of the highlights:

I picked Thune over Johnson in 2002, Daschle over Thune in 2004, Janklow to be convicted of reckless driving, not manslaughter, and remain in the U.S. House, Clinton to win the Democratic presidential nomination in a walk and Obama to lose to any Republic presidential candidate, including one who picked Tina Fey for a running mate.

I’ve been en fuego for years. Or in ashes.

It isn’t just politics, either. My ability to see into the future extends to investment decisions, too. That’s why I’ve held on to my Lee Enterprises and Gannett stocks long after everyone else. I just KNOW they’re going to come back any day soon.

Anyway, the Duffy boys were right.

I was wrong. Again.

And again. And again. And…

…again.

By KW

Frank B. asked a good one somewhere down below: What would have happened if the blizzard that hit Wednesday night had arrived two days earlier?

Imagine that the conditions Thursday had been the conditions Tuesday.

Then what? All those votes in Rapid City and elsewhere just don’t get made?

Anybody remember an election like that, where major voting segments couldn’t get to the polls?

Especially in a time before 20 or 30 percent or more were already in through early ballots?

(UPDATE: Sectetary of State Chris Nelson agrees says Election Day will go on, regardless of the weather. But if election officials knew the storm was coming, as they did for this last one, they could leave the early voting options open during the weekend at courthouses and encourage as many people to vote in advance as possible. They also could get set up with highway crews and emergency workers to get the poll workers to thier stations: “After that, it would be a question of who was able to make it in to vote,” Nelson said.
But ther’es no “do-over” on Election Day, a thought not lost on Nelson.
“I think about it that prior to every general election, because it’s a possibility.”

By Kevin Woster

In the end, I voted for McCain.

I voted for the man who gave that gracious concession speech Tuesday night, the one I’ve admired throughout his years in the Senate, the survivor of unimaginable horrors, the man of past personal imperfections, the sometimes irascible, white-haired hero who wears the scars of failure and the medals of redemption.

That’s the guy I spent 25 minutes with on the Straight Talk Express last August, a man as warm and human in person as he is stiff and awkward on the campaign stump - especially when he’s campaigning in ways or on issues that he can’t quite hold in his heart.

And, yes, the guy with the Monday-Night-Football sense of humor, who shared a good laugh with the nation even on the eve of his predictable defeat.

McCain was my guy. As a voter, I felt like I knew him better, and trusted him more.

Yet, Barack Obama didn’t forget me - and millions like me - as he celebrated on stage after his historic triumph. In a speech of hope, power and elegance, he turned not just to the faithful, but also to those whose vote he hadn’t won by Nov. 4:

“And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote But I hear your voice, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.”

Predictable outreach? Sure, but one that reached my heart, and my hopes.

I look forward to the next four years, as the new president faces the daunting array of challenges before us, and works to affirm the faith of his supporters, reach out to an expectant world and prove himself to people who had doubts, or simply liked McCain better.

I think he can do that, especially if we help. I dearly hope he does.

He won’t have to wait four years for my support, however. As my president, he won that on Election Day.

And my vote? Well, if President-elect Obama does what he has promised, or even much of it, I’ll be happy to step up to the voting booth on the first Tuesday in November, 2012 and, with an inked oval of affirmation, say:”Yes, he did.”