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.
In South Dakota, the South Dakota Democratic Party (SDDP) will choose its Chairman for the next four years next week in Oacoma. There are five Democratic Candidates and one candidate who claims to be a Democrat when it is convenient for her. (Paula Hawks).
Despite a lot of good intentions and whatever the results, the SDDP will probably remain what it is today, a Top Down organization whose leaders will continue to wonder why its members don’t participate and do their bidding. Rather than live up to its name and reform itself and become a truly (small “d”) democratic organization, the SDDP will most likely remain a rural dominated Party in which “one county” rather than “one person” equals one vote and in which a Harding County with its 173 Democratic voters will have as much say in Party affairs as a Minnehaha, Pennington, Beadle or a Brown County with their tens of thousands of Democratic voters.
It was pointed out the other day that South Dakota has more cows per capita than any other state in the Nation. As long as the SDDP is governed on the basis of “one cow equals one vote” it and its candidates will never be able to form a message that resonates with a majority of both urban and rural voters. Instead it will lie moribund on the table as it does now, only partially organized and available to any cohesive interest group to use as a platform for its agenda, no matter how popular or unpopular that interest groups ideas may be to the general public.
It is a sad state of affairs because the Democratic Party affords ordinary people one of the few structures where they can regularly express their political preferences and attempt to influence the public discussion. Alternatively, people can either accept their powerlessness or choose to form and fund an independent organization of their own, an alternative, which for practical purposes, is available only to the wealthy, the well connected or those with a lot of extra time on their hands.
Despite my skepticism, I wish the SDDP well for they are the only alternative in town to the Republican Party, the Party of Trump, an alternative totally unacceptable to me for many reasons but also because, unlike our Senators, I don’t feel like Kowtowing anytime soon.
I need a Drink.
I noticed this post about the Yankton County Democratic Party Chair Candidate forum on Saturday. First I want to say I don’t have a dog in the fight, not only am I NOT a delegate, I’m not a registered Democrat (just a very bitter and cynical indy). I also have no issues with Paula Hawks, though I think the best person for the chair is John Claussen. I think Paula had her shot but screwed it up so badly it should disqualify her. But I wanted to pick apart some of the things she said on Saturday;
Paula Hawks asserted that the party needs to give members something to believe in rather than just issues to fight against. She also said that party lacks a central message and has not done a good job of showing what it means to be a Democrat.
I agree that the party needs a central message like farming, affordable healthcare and better wages but I also think each candidate needs to mold a special message for the district they are running in. I have felt that the SDDP has too often tried to create the message (simplify it) for each individual candidate. This is painting with too broad of a brush. I think the state party needs to concentrate on raising money for candidates and let the individual candidate create their own unique Democratic message in relation to their district, or even the office they are running for (legislator, city councilor, county commissioner, etc.).
Finally, she claimed that the state party needs to do more with both social media and mainstream media to get the message out. She pointed out that many young voters have moved away from Facebook and rely on Snapchat or Instagram and asserted that the party needs to fashion a message to fit those platforms.
This is where the party has been f’ing the chicken for several years. They keep thinking that the only way to bring in younger voters is by posting on Social Media. While it’s ok to campaign on social media (it’s mostly free) you have to tie it in with a strong direct mail strategy and campaign. In fact, several experts who study direct mail found that the younger generation 18-35ish love getting direct mail, in fact they read it more than voters 55 and older (which come in 2nd place) while middle age has continued to be flat.
A variety of studies have concluded that millennials favor and even enjoy receiving direct mail. InfoTrendsconducted a survey finding that while only 26% of millennials prefer email marketing, 38% prefer direct mail pieces. In addition, millennials are more likely than any other generation to read their mail, in great part due to the fact that they actually enjoy receiving mail; in fact, this study found that 25% of millennials consider reading direct mail a leisure activity. The USPS found that 47% of millennials look forward to checking their mailbox each day, which Harris Diamond, CEO of the global advertising network McCann, affectionately refers to as “The Mail Moment.†It’s important that companies attempting to target millennials effectively tap into this moment.
Not only do millennials like to read their mail, but they also pay closer attention to it than any other age demographic. In 2016, the USPS found that 40% of millennials read direct mail thoroughly, compared to only 18% of non-millennials. They also discovered that millennials spend more time reading mail compared to other generations: an average of 9.7 minutes each day, compared to 7.9 minutes for Generation X and 8 minutes for Baby Boomers. These reports illustrate that millennials are extremely likely to engage with direct mail marketing material.
So why is that? Because the younger generation has NOT grown up with mail, they have grown up with social media and phones, they are bored with it. A good, old fashioned direct mail campaign towards younger voters tied into social media and good old door knocking is incredibly effective. It also helps to have definitive voting lists of who actually votes. As Cameraman Bruce would say, “Enough of the Facebook games.” Direct mail works if you work it. Every successful campaign I have worked on used direct mail as it’s central messenger.
Besides the fact that I ate more lamb chops and Baklava in one night than I probably have in my entire life, we got a lot of questions about Kristi Noem. The big question of the night was “Where did Billie go wrong?” Minnesota Democrats continue to be confused by the Republican stronghold we have in our state – me to.
l3wis 
