Tripp County South Dakota Democrats

Democratic news and views from the Democratic Party organization in Tripp County, South Dakota. Posting by individuals here may or may not be positions of the local Democratic Party, The SD Democratic Party or the Democratic National Committee or any other Democratic organization or official. Comments welcome.

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Tripp County Democrats regular meeting June 24, 2004

These are not official minutes by any means; just a few comments of somebody present at the meeting.

Links to this Blog were provided to all present and a number of citizens at the meeting provided their e-mail addresses so they could get e-mail notices of meetings and local events.

The recent election generated significant discussion about problems resulting from South Dakota's new law which appears to always require a photo ID before a registered voter can vote. It is a bit strange when local officials say something like, "Hello Doug" or Hello Marian". Do you have proof of your identity?" A few people did not have such personal identification and were never informed they also had the option to swear and affirm to their own identity. It seems that some election officials know fully well there is such an option available to registered voters, but are willing to bully anybody they think they can fool. A local party committee was formed to look into such problems and hopefully will make suggestions.

One suggestion not directly related to the photo ID problem, is that all election sites have prominently presented easily read signs in large type telling which voters are to vote at which table, etc. For many years, new voters walk in and are not provided any obvious clues of what to do next. More than a few stand in the wrong line or even the wrong precinct. It is time what is always obvious to election officials be made overtly obvious to all voters..no matter how naive or inexperienced at voting...or old and faltering with failing memory. There is much room for improvement.

George Chatman, a regional campaign staff member for the Sen. Daschle re-election campaign, made a number of optimistic reports on campaign plans and tactics. But, we all know that no matter how careful and correct Sen. Daschle is, the Thune campaign will do something much like the Bush campaign did in smearing Al Gore and/or Max Cleland. They will take something insignificant and magnify and distort it and present it thousands of times until the more gullible believe such blatant lies must have some truth...after all, there sure will be a lot of smoke..and mirrors.

A pretty good discussion of the State Democratic convention was held. It seems that for more than a few convention goers, the old adage, "I belong to no organized party, I am a Democrat." seemed to be altogether still too, too true. More than a few prairie populists were also not very happy with delegates to the convention loudly carrying water for the richest merchants in the largest cities. Just as there are many, many registered Republicans too poor to benefit from their party's egregious pandering to the richest, there are a few Democrats who have gotten rich enough they have forgotten their prosperity most likely resulted with a lot of help from liberal and progressive Democratic ideas and legislation.

After all that, everybody sat down and had some homemade icecream churned right at the meeting by hand. A heck of a lot better than left-over rolls and stale coffee from the bank pot dispensed with dinky cookies at the GOP events. Democrats just have more fun...even if we aren't organized like a convention of bean counters. Stay tuned. We might even turn up some new "music" now and then.

Henry Waxman Documents Bush Lies on Iraq

Found at Jeffrey Richard's blog on the emperor with no clothes
Strip the Emperor Blog


A site from Rep. Henry Waxman. Go from here to the pdf file
that contains records documenting the Bush lies on Iraq.
Henry Waxman Documents

which documents the over 100 lies or distortions on the record of
Bush administration lies about Iraq.

The mainstream corporate press may want favors from the Bush administration and most likely will fail to cover much of anything negative about Bush as long as the crony capitalist branch of the media still seeks more mergers and tax breaks. Henry Waxman knows he won't get any favors from the Bush administration.

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

**Congratulations to Stephanie Herseth and Campaign Staff

At about 15 minutes past midnight, some of the Indian country votes finally came in and Herseth picked up enough votes to get back to a 51% to 49% lead.

Roughly, Herseth: 124,014; Diedrich: 121,066

This is about a 3,000 vote spread. The vote spread has bounced up and down tonight. A half hour ago, the percentages were 50-50, but Herseth has never lost a lead all night as far as I know. That is somewhat an artifact of the way votes get counted in the state and where "Indian Country" is in the state.

This looked like a runaway for Herseth before Diedrich picked up some name recognition. A lot of money has gone into this race. The Republicans start with a 37,000 vote lead in SD and had a lot more legislative primary races which helped get the Republican vote out on a local basis rather than just on a state issue.
Results tonight made race more like a cliff-hanger than a runaway however.

At about 12:20AM CDt, the Associated Press just decided that Herseth has won. Not sure yet what convinced them it was over for Diedrich, but I expect we will know in a few minutes.

The GOP has so damn much money to toss into elections like this that I expect the campaign for the November election will begin tomorrow...er today I guess.

At 12:30 AM, vote was 124,082 for Herseth and 121,112 for Diedrich. I think I am going to hit the sack
assuming that Herseth has won.