They seem to have about every base covered except the thousands of hard working South Dakotans in this state that are underpaid and overworked. Recently SD News watch did a story that around 70% of South Dakotans are paid under $40K a year. It’s a travesty. A labor caucus would have been a nice gesture. CORRECTION: Somehow it was tied into small business below and I did not catch it. A friendly suggestion would be splitting the two into separate caucuses, because, they are separate issues.
There was a group discussion on Friday with some claiming the change in Democratic Party rules allowing NPA and IND voters was a good idea. I decided to pull up the 2017 statewide voter file and see for myself if my gut feelings were right.
I have never considered the experiment to allow independent voters a well thought out plan and the statewide numbers are proving it out.
This data is from the statewide late 2017 TotalVote file I am able to work with.
In 2012 IND and NPA voters were allowed to start voting in Democratic Primaries. The idea of allowing IND and NPA voters to have a voice in Dem Primary’s primary has been a failure. It has encouraged Dems to change their registration and still vote in primary. It is a loser’s mentality. A reason Mike Huether changed to IND?
The real proof of this being a bad decision is borne out in the 2016 election. As contentious as the primary was, it did not bring any additional voters to the process. I remember many voters being confused. A few asked me in 2016 if voting in the Facebook polls counted in the primary between Clinton and Sanders.
We can talk about this in more detail but the numbers show a time and election experiment failure. Instead of tearing the party structure apart, isn’t it time to actually build something?
I will agree with Taneeza on one level, there was poor planning of speakers for a $100 ticketed event. The speakers should have been more diverse, not just on gender but on culture. The problem is that the SDDP is become more and more RIGHT every day, and one of the reasons I may never return to the party in South Dakota.
Congrats to Paula. I’m sure she has a lot of work ahead of her cleaning up the Tornberg mess.
But in a surprising election, Paula had to go up against Tornberg in the 2nd and final round. No one reached 51% in the first round of voting, so the top two were picked. Paula got 72% of the vote vs. Tornberg’s 28%.
While I am all for the staff Unionizing, why wasn’t this done years ago instead of a couple of days before a LIKELY new chair will be elected. It smells a bit.
As a person who has worked in printing for 25 years, we have often run into roadblocks in getting printing from the SDDP because they require a union printer. I only know of ONE union printer in Sioux Falls and they cannot handle large statewide mailings, that I know. That is why a lot of SDDP LARGE mailings are printed out of state at bigger union facilities. I find it to be a double standard requiring union printers when the staff isn’t even unionized.
Like I said, this is a good step, but it also looks like it will tie the hands of the new chair. Make no mistake, the new chair will want to make staff changes. I think it is pretty obvious that when there is a regime change, you change a few soldiers under that regime. I guess we will see what kind of roadblocks this presents for the new chair. I told one candidate already that if they win they need to ‘Clean House’. You can’t keep remnants of a failing party around when you are trying to rebuild it. Fixing the SDDP will take more than just a new chair, it will take a NEW staff willing to try NEW ideas, whether they are union or not.
