How bad would South Dakota Mess be, without Democrats in DC?

For most of the history of the state, South Dakota has been under Republican control of the State Legislature, Executive offices and via judicial appointments, most of the court system is loaded with Republicans. What has this blind loyalty of South Dakotans to the party of the rich and privileged done for South Dakota? Mostly made a huge mess of the state education and prison system, installed and cultivated a massively regressive tax system, maintained a cheap labor economy that would be the envy only of third world nations and generally kept South Dakota a few generations behind most of the US with the possible exception of a few deep south states.

What kind of a disastrous mess would SD be if it had not been for a few progressive Democrats from SD in the US congress? Consider what SD would be like if all of our representation in Washington had been clones of E.Y. Berry. Would SD be 50th in EVERY rating for a modern society?

I am still mystified why any voter in South Dakota who is not obscenely rich ever voted for a Republican for any office of any kind or would ever do so in the future. There is some kind of collective madness in this state where an apparent majority continues to vote in state and local elections in the same way apparently expecting a different policy result than they get every time from their past votes. .Most of them know they aren't rich, but apparently assume that voting for the party of the rich will cause some richness to rub off on them sometime. It is a political cargo-cult mentality. Maybe they should remember that virtue in the leadership of the Republican Party follows wealth--no matter how it was stolen.

Thune Ads Vilify Kennedy, Clinton, and Daschle

[Note: This was written by Roger Wonnenberg, but posted by Doug Wiken because Roger was unable to maintain a connection with Blogger]
I just got done watching a slick TV ad for John Thune. In it, Thune
said, "
The things that Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton want to get done do not fit
with the agenda of South Dakota.”

. For forty years Kennedy has been one of the strongest American
political voices for the vulnerable. With the help of many Democrats and a
few remaining Republican real statesmen he has made many positive
contributions to our country. If you are a South Dakotan working for
minimum wage without healthcare coverage or with healthcare costs eating
most of your
wage, check his agenda very closely. You can decide if it is good for
you and your family. If you work in an unsafe work environment where you
can be fired for any reason real or imagined, you decide if he speaks for
you and your family. Listen to Thune and ask yourself what you hear that
might help
you in your current situation.

As far as I know, Senator Clinton holds nearly similar views. But
because
Clinton and Kennedy speak for the vulnerable they are perceived as a threat
to the very rich and very powerful and are vilified for supporting any ban
on machine guns in the streets, gay rights, and a woman’s right to have
control of her own body.

The wealthy and powerful would have you believe that means taking away
your hunting guns, and that the other issues {Gays and Abortion} are the
biggest of the campaign. Their smoke and mirrors ads are designed to
confuse
voters. They mix constitutional rights with legislative issues and spend
millions on
ads to make the insignificant or irrelevant seem critically important to
obscure
the real problems, and to mute or destroy the messengers, and thus keep
their
wealth and power unscathed. By Roger Wonnenberg