When Will The DSCC Wake Up To The Fact There's A Crucial, Winnable Race In South Dakota?

Rick and Rounds

South Dakota isn't really a dependable red state. Sure, in presidential elections it is but the state has had a penchant for sending Democrats to the House and Senate in Washington. Two-thirds of the Senate contests since 1986 have been won by Democrats. This cycle, one of the best populists running anywhere, Rick Weiland, is running an independent campaign against GOP Establishment pick Mike Rounds-- if, as is likely, rounds survives all those Tea Party primary opponents. The DSCC, which had its heart set on former Blue Dog chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, hasn't rallied to Weiland's cause… even though he's been endorsed by most of the Democrats in the Senate including virtually all the senators who fight for Main Street rather than for Wall Street: Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Al Franken, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Brian Schatz, Mazie Hirono, Ron Wyden, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jack Reed, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, Richard Blumenthal, Tom Harkin and, of course, Bernie Sanders, who recognizes a kindred spirit when he sees one.

Although Weiland hasn't been up on TV yet, over the weekend, a new Yankton Press and Dakotan poll was released that showed him leading Rounds, 35.1% to 34.2%. Gee, I hope someone sends that to the DSCC, which seems to think it can just throw Senate opportunities to the wind now that Patty Murray isn't over there cracking the whip.

Last week, the Minnesota Wry Wing Politics blog nailed the essence of the Weiland campaign with the observation that his approach to Health Reform is the one the Democrats, including Obama, should have adopted. The party-- and the country-- would be far better off today if they had. Yes, Medicare For All. Weiland: "People understand Medicare. It works, it’s efficient, and all this other stuff that they’re having now to focus on is extremely complicated, and they don’t understand it."

Obama didn’t go with Medicare For All, presumably because he was afraid that Republicans would castigate it as “government run health care” and “socialism.”

As it turned out, the Republican spin machine was determined to characterize anythin Obama proposed as “government run health care” and “socialism.” After all, it uses those terms to describe the ACA, which is absurd, because the ACA relies on private insurers and private caregivers without permitting a single government-run option in the mix.

President Obama was never going to avoid this “government run health care” political attack, so there was no good reason to allow it to shape the proposal.

Moreover, Medicare happens to be “government run health care” that Americans really like. About 56 percent of Medicare recipients give it a rating of 9 or 10 on a 0-10 scale, while only about 40 percent of Americans enrolled in private health insurance gave their plans such a high rating. An amazing 70% of Medicare recipients say they always get access to needed health care, while only 51% of people with private insurance say that.

A 2007 Associated Press/Yahoo survey showed that about two-thirds of Americans (65%) agreed that “the United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers.”

So demonizing the specific (“Medicare”) would have been much more politically difficult for Republicans than demonizing the abstract (“government run health care” or “socialism”).

Could Obama have passed a “Medicare For All” bill?  Expanding the nation’s most popular health plan was certainly possible. After all, knowing that two-thirds of Americans support Medicare for All, what politician of either party would want to take to the stump arguing:

"For your parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends, Medicare is terrific. I’ll fight to the death to protect it for them. But for the rest of you, I am blocking you from accessing Medicare.  Medicare for YOU would be radical socialism that would lead to horrific health problems."

Huh?  That would be a head-spinning political argument to sell.

Still, because the insurance lobby is so strong, maybe Congress would have rejected Medicare for All, against the wishes of two-thirds of their constituents. But if Obama had made  Medicare for All the starting point for the debate, the compromise at the end of the process may have been more progressive, such as a private-dominated marketplace with a Medicare-like public option impacting market competition.

Meanwhile, ex-Senator Larry Pressler, a Republican who served in DC between 1974 and 1996, is running as an independent and there's no doubt he'll be siphoning votes away from Rounds, who is enmeshed in a messy corruption scandal (EB-5, South Dakota's biggest local political story of 2013) and who many Republicans just cannot stomach. Here's the path to victory Weiland has mapped out for his supporters:

Rick Weiland believes Democrats fail in red states because they pander to the voters strong dislike for, and distrust of government, a strategy which allows Republicans to either outbid them, or turn them into DINOs (Democrats In Name Only).

Rather than pandering, Weiland believes Democrats must offer a fighting explanation as to why government has so seldom been on the side of ordinary citizens in recent years, and a way to change that.

"In my state," Rick says, "if you try to tell voters that government is good, they think you're nuts.  If you try to tell them you hate government too, they say 'prove it,' and your Tea Party opponent 'out proves' you.

"But when you explain to them that the reason government is so seldom on their side is because that it has been taken over by big money special interests, and used to rig the formerly free enterprise playing field heavily in favor of the powerful and the privileged, their eyes light up. And when you then call them to join with you in a fight to take back their government, and enlist it on their side in the fights that matter most to them, they sign up in droves,” Weiland says.

"That’s what our 'Take It Back' campaign is all about,” he adds. “It’s a new path to victory in red states, one built on the fact of, and an explanation for, the escalating inequality Americans see all around them, one that will lead not only to victory for Democrats, but to victories that allow us to actually be Democrats.” 

…In a failed effort to scare off Tea Party opposition last year, Mike Rounds publicly boasted that he would raise 9 million dollars for his Senate campaign, with 7.5 million coming from out of state. Weiland has relentlessly contrasted that boast with his own promise that he would visit every one of South Dakota’s 311 incorporated towns (by January 2014 he had already visited 266!) to ask South Dakotans in person to support his Take it Back movement, and to explain to them why it mattered.

The spectacle of the former Governor begging the wealthy for campaign donations in Florida, California, New York and Washington DC, while Rick Weiland slogged from Peever to Pukwana to Platte asking South Dakotans for their support, has already cut Rounds lead over Weiland from 27% to 6%, and that is before a single ad dramatizing this dramatic difference in campaign style has even been produced.

The five-way Republican primary will provide the Weiland campaign with an opportunity to quietly establish its positive, hard-working, for-the-people brand, while four GOP challengers bang away at former Governor Rounds, whom they openly and repeatedly call “RINO Mike,” for his refusal to sign the Grover Norquist "No New Taxes" pledge, and numerous other infidelities to Tea Party orthodoxy. It will also create an obvious opportunity, starting the day after that primary, for appeals to the supporters of the losing candidates. Weiland’s progressive campaign will be particularly well-suited to appeal to Tea Party voters jilted by an establishment Governor, and angry over government policies they feel favor the powerful and hurt them.

If Mike Rounds is the GOP nominee, he will face a storm almost perfectly designed to fragment the GOP vote. Former Senator Larry Pressler, who virtually every South Dakota Republican over the age of 38 has voted for, will contest Rounds for the traditional GOP vote, and the memory of Rounds defeating Tea Party favorite, Stace Nelson, in the June primary will weaken him with Tea Party GOP voters. Any Democrat would obviously benefit from this fragmentation, but Rick Weiland’s Take it Back campaign is perfectly suited by the nature of its appeal to capture and hold large chunks of this fragmented GOP base.

Rick has joined the small list of Senate candidates Blue America has endorsed this cycle. Rounds is a multimillionaire insurance salesman with major backing from Rove… so this race won't be easy. But his ground game is a winner and it's worked in South Dakota before. And… $500 will buy a 30 second prime time television ad and reach almost 85% of the voting population. Whether you want to give $5 or $50 or $500, there is no contribution that isn't welcome and no contribution that's too small. Here's where you can do it.