I’m starting to wonder if our local unions will ever learn?

I suppose I could talk about all the missteps the Loetscher campaign made and all the dirty tricks the TenHaken camp played (nice press release about nothing Jackley, some media in town are still saying it said something) but I really don’t want to waste my time or yours.

I could also talk about the missteps in the campaign between Soehl and DeBoer, but I don’t think either camp made any. In fact, DeBoer could have easily won, if it wasn’t for Soehl’s enormous war chest from all the banksters and developers in town (I wonder if he had money left over to buy his rubber stamp) and the UNION support.

I thought Zach was sitting pretty good until I heard the Unions were doing phone banks for Soehl. While I don’t have an issue with the Unions supporting a candidate or doing phone calls, they were supporting the WRONG candidate. Besides Zach’s youth, he supports local business, innovation and didn’t take special interest money, all the things Unions should support. Instead they backed an insurance salesman (who is a former union firefighter) who took every lick of special interest money he could. Money from businesses that don’t pay good wages and certainly don’t support unions. It was also obvious from the beginning that Soehl was a Huether recruit. In his first press conference announcing his candidacy he praised Huether and wanted to continue his legacy. Huether abused and used the Unions in his first term campaign, and screwed over city employees and police in union contracts and they never learned from that experience.

We will just see how much Mr. Soehl supports the unions after he takes his oath.

UPDATE: From Kooper Caraway the SF Union president;

So, Curt was a union fire fighter so you got that correct. But he has a more involved involvement in the labor movement than that. He grew up working the concession stand in the labor temple. He actually used to be in my position, President of the SIoux Falls AFL-CIO, and prior to recieving our endorsement he signed the Union Pledge, which reads: ” I do hereby pledge my most sacred word and honor, that I will represent the working people of Sioux Falls with Integrity, I pledge that working families will be a priority in my administration, and I further pledge that I will defend the right and freedoms of working people, including the rights of workers to organize in thier workplace and the right of all workers to collectively bargain.”

We love Zach, and we will support him on any future endeavors, but Curt has a longer history of involvement with the issues of Working People and I believe that is why the delegates voted to endorse him.

11 Thoughts on “Update: Unions got scammed again by the Huether Clan

  1. I like Curt. I still think he is a good Democrat even though he ran a very pro-Huether campaign and was well funded by the establishment here in town.

    But I think the underlying problem when you speak to the unions helping a candidate, who has ties to both the union and the business crowd in this town, is how to often the Democratic Party is led or filled with special interest groups that have a regimented and or rudimentary approach to politics where only their special interest matters.

    Now, we can certainly debate as to whether the unions will be served by Curt given his donor base, but these special interests within the Democratic Party are often at the detriment of the greater picture of what it means to be a Democrat and what Democrats are suppose to be fighting for.

    An other example is Jo herself. If Jo is a progressive, wants to advance women’s causes and their place in politics, then why has she been spending the last couple of years promoting the image of John Thune with her ad agency?

    At some point, all Democrats need to be “Full Service Democrats” and not just Democrats with merely a special interest, that service their own parochial interests….

  2. l3wis on May 2, 2018 at 12:43 pm said:

    VSG – You pointed out what is so frustrating about this ‘non-partisan’ race. Jo kept her party affiliation out of it, except behind the scenes. After the general, the GOP decided to pile on Jo with their typical liberal bashing. I wish they would just knock their crap off.

  3. matt johnson on May 2, 2018 at 12:50 pm said:

    and one of the last things jo reminded us of before the door hit her in the ass was how proud she is of democrats- yet to see much good said about republicans here

  4. L3wis,

    You can always tell when a Democrat is in trouble statewide, because they run to the reservations for support and when the Republicans are in trouble in a “non partisan race,” they always go partisan on us.

    I am glad to see Cooper’s comments. Cooper is a great union leader, who gave a great speech at the McGovern Day Dinner. But with all due respect to Curt and Cooper, that after Huether and what he did to the City unions – even though they endorsed him in 2010 – we must be cautious…

    Often in South Dakota Democratic politics our leaders have talked the talk, but then they go and vote for Kemp-Roth, NAFTA, DOMA, the Bush tax cuts, the Bush wars, and against ObamaCare….. We must be cautious…..

    When we as Democrats energize, inspire, and fight for Democrats and Democratic causes is when we will win, but until then, we will continue to lose if we allow ourselves to be nothing but “kinder and gentler Republicans,” who are backed by establishment donors…

  5. I might also add, that I think the first thing Curt should do as a Councilman is introduce a motion to once again address the hotel/ramp development and, or who are, its developers.

    It is the least the City Council can do for a dead construction worker, union member or not. And it is definitely what a union politician should do.

  6. Matt Staab on May 2, 2018 at 2:20 pm said:

    8 years ago the democrat party busted it’s hump to get MMM elected mayor. The republicans learned from their inaction and stepped up and helped Ten Haken. Can you blame them after what we all went through these past 8 years?

  7. Warren Phear on May 2, 2018 at 2:40 pm said:

    matt johnson. You voted for, as did ten hauken, for a pu$$y grabber. To this day you throw that misogynistic man child mulligans for every one of his childish twitter rants. That’s what I think of SD republicans.

  8. The GOP helped Jamison in ’14 too, but to no avail. Paul was a better candidate than Greg, while the GOP thinks they made the difference…

  9. Paul had this election in the bag without Jackley and Noem’s help. He didn’t need them to back him as Republicans would have voted for him anyway just because Jolene is a registered Democrat. Both of these candidates were fiscal conservatives. Jolene is probably quite a bit more socially liberal than Paul, but the biggest reason she didn’t capture many Republican votes is “because she’s a Democrat”. It’s sad that people are so stuck to their party affiliations.

    I’m a registered Republican, but right now I’m planning on voting for Billie Sutton in the Gubernatorial race because Noem and Jackley are just awful.

  10. J,

    What did you think of the AGs press release last week, where he gave the impression that an successful hack is not itself a crime?

  11. “unsuccessful hack!”

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