South Dakota Politics

Chicken droppings?

Dick Wadhams, John Thune's campaign manager, is making the headlines locally and nationally for aiming a certain epithet at Senator Daschle for avoiding debates and sending a staffer "to slink around in the shadows and tape John Thune when Thune is the one who shows up for these events."

Dakota Blog Alliance Conference concludes

Well, today was spent meeting and greeting fellow Dakota bloggers at the Dakota Blog Alliance Conference. It was a privilege to finally meet John Hinderaker of Power Line in person. John very generously spent a big part of the day here in Sioux Falls, participating in the various presentations at the conference and delivering a very nicely done keynote address. Thanks for coming in, John.

Dakota Blog Alliance Conference

Be sure to attend the Dakota Blog Alliance Conference.

Grassley: "Daschle has served the nation poorly"

The Sioux City (IA) Journal published an article today headlined "Grassley: Bush needs to paint distinct picture for 10 percent undecideds" discussing President Bush's planned visit to Sioux City tomorrow. Excerpt:

Grassley added that Bush should recognize the geography of his visit and speak to the South Dakotans in attendance. U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota is locked in a re-election race with former Republican Congressman John Thune. Grassley said Daschle has served the nation poorly, bottling up key legislation and judicial appointments. Many good pieces of legislation, Grassley said, have been "essentially buried in a Daschle burial ground" through filibusters and other means.

In 2002, Senator Johnson used a Grassley quote in one of his television ads regarding livestock ownership by meatpackers. Grassley is known to be an independent-minded Republican. I don't think Daschle can easily shrug off this criticism by Grassley.

Grassley has also criticized Daschle for putting the interests of the Democratic Party before the interests of South Dakota corn farmers on ethanol, which can be read HERE and HERE.

Thune calls on Daschle to support CIA nominee

Yesterday, Investor's Business Daily had an editorial noting that Senator Daschle was "sharpening his knives" for a fight over the nomination of Porter Goss to head the CIA. Now, John Thune is calling on Senator Daschle not to obstruct the nominee:

"I know Porter Goss very well having served with him in Congress and I strongly support him to head the CIA," Thune said. "Senator Daschle's silence on whether he supports the Goss nomination is disconcerting given the deep national security concerns of our nation."

The AP has a story published yesterday headlined "CIA Nominee Goss Faces Tough Confirmation."

DVT: Argus Leader's profit margin 46% in 1997

DVT has been doing some masterful investigative work of late on the entrenched monopoly that is the Argus Leader. Lack of resources is one of the main excuses the editors of the AL have used through the years for not covering all the news that's fit to print in South Dakota. Now it seems apparent that the excuse is bogus, given the extraordinarily high profit margin that the AL has posted in the past.

Stefan Sharkansky published a post about this very subject last spring, in which he listed the profit margins of some of the largest publicly traded newspaper companies. Suffice it to say that the AL's profit margin is obscene compared even to that of Gannett, its parent organization, which is 18%. (Gannet Co. Inc., by the way, is the most profitable of the large publicly traded newspaper companies.)

Quote of the Day

"But, Tom Daschle has a very unique way of separating himself--he can be a national Democrat when he's in Washington, but when he's in South Dakota he's clearly a South Dakota Democrat." - NPR political editor Ken Rudin today on the Tavis Smiley Show. To hear the entire show, click HERE. To hear the quote cited above, go to the four minute mark.

BOMBSHELL: Kranz overheard priests' conversation; used info to aid Democratic campaign

In this election year, the matter of Catholic politicians who do not subscribe to the Church's pro-life stance on abortion has come to the forefront. It has become an issue largely because John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, is a Catholic politician who does not subscribe to the Church's pro-life position. The issue has become prominent in South Dakota as well, because these Catholic politicians include Senator Tom Daschle, who in 2002 sent out a fundraising letter on behalf of NARAL. This is a sea-change in Daschle's position on abortion, as he ran as a pro-life Democrat in 1978 (when he said "I am opposed to abortion. I do not support it. I have never supported it. It is an abhorrent practice. As a citizen and as a lifelong member of the Catholic faith I will do everything in my power to persuade others that abortion is wrong") and 1986 (when he said "I am unalterably opposed to abortion on demand"). In this election year, Daschle has been trying to have it both ways on the issue of abortion, as observed in a story last spring by Bob Mercer for the Aberdeen American News headlined "Anti-abortion group criticizes Daschle: Senate minority leader under fire for voting both for, against fetal rights."

Last week, Bishop Robert Carlson of the Sioux Falls Diocese published an article in the "Bishop's Bulletin" headlined "The responsibility to have a well informed faith life" declaring the following:

[Y]ou cannot vote for a politician who is pro-abortion when you have a choice and remain a Catholic in good standing....

In the Diocese of Sioux Falls, those who act in defiance of these fundamental principles of life should not be honored or invited to speak at Catholic colleges, schools or parishes, or hold any office such as lector, Eucharist Minister, usher, parish council member or religious education teacher.

This passage means that the Bishop of Senator Daschle's home diocese has ordered parishoniers not to vote for him, and that Senator Daschle cannot speak at Catholic colleges, schools or parishes. While this is an extremely controversial and newsworthy event, there has not been anything reported about it in the pages of the Argus Leader at the time of this writing.

What is so interesting about this issue is that it in many ways is history repeating itself. While researching the papers of Senator George McGovern, I discovered a memo dated April 24, 1979 written by a McGovern staffer named Cindy Kranz to another McGovern staffer named Judy Harrington. The memo relayed sensitive information overheard by David Kranz on the issue of the Catholic Church and its opposition to the pro-choice position of Senator McGovern, who was worried that the issue would sink his reelection bid in 1980. David Kranz, of course, is the current dean of South Dakota political reporters who at that time was the managing editor for the Mitchell Daily Republic. Cindy Kranz is David Kranz's sister.

The memo in question has the initials "GVC" scrawled in handwriting above the text, which are the initials of George V. Cunningham, who was McGovern's chief of staff. Beside the initials is scrawled the word "WOW!" indicating that the contents of the memo were a big deal to the higher ranking staffers for McGovern.

The text of the memo details how David Kranz overheard a conversation in the Mitchell Holiday Inn between two priests discussing strategy on McGovern and abortion, subsequently approached Bishop Dudley (the bishop of the Sioux Falls diocese at that time) about it, and then passed the information gleaned on to the McGovern staff. Kranz then wrote a story for the MDR which included a purported quote from the Bishop asking people "not to involve themselves with politics and personalities" regarding the abortion issue. The story was then picked up by the AP wire. You can read the pdf copy of the memo as well as the attached background story on why the priests were at the Mitchell Holiday Inn by clicking HERE. Excerpt from the memo:

While removing his coat, [David Kranz] overheard two priests talking, one of whom he recognized as Father James Wolf, Holy Name Church, Watertown. The other one was younger with a beard. They mentioned McGovern and the pro-life people and the younger one told Wolf they have to sit back and take stock of the situation before they do anything as a unit. At that point, my brother pretended to make a phone call to overhear the rest. It sounded as though they had discussed the situation in some committee meeting and finally the younger priest convinced Wolf that they shouldn't be too hasty about their plans.

With a chuckle, I commented to Dave that I should have "worked the meeting." He said he finished it for me. He talked to Bishop Dudley about the conversation and Dudley was just shocked and wanted to know who the priests were, but my brother kept his sources. Dudley said that the subject has never come up in this meeting or any committee meetings. He said he has written letters to the priests about pro-life, but is upset because the church is being misunderstood-by its own people, also. He says their goal is to advance life and not to mention or endorse any candidates toward that end. Although he said he cannot control what individual priests do on the altar, he will not issue any memo or mention any names when it comes down to elections. And, he will not encourage any such actions.

(Emphases added.) This memo indicates that Kranz was working as a McGovern operative, gathering and passing along intelligence to the McGovern campaign. He even tells the McGovern campaign who his sources are, but refuses to tell Bishop Dudley. As the memo states, the McGovern staffer wanted to "work the meeting" but David Kranz told the staffer that "he finished it for me." This behavior brings to mind a quote from a former lieutenant governor of South Dakota that "when George McGovern sneezes, it's Dave Kranz who catches the cold."

Four months later, Kranz wrote a story on the issue of abortion and McGovern that appeared in the September 6 Mitchell Daily Republic. The AP picked up the story and beamed it around the state. The Kranz story ran in the September 7 edition of the Argus Leader under the headline "Dudley: 'Baby killer' tacky pro-life tactic." The story quoted Bishop Dudley to the effect that people ought not involve themselves with politics and personalities on abortion. You can read a pdf copy of the AP story, along with an attached correction (to be explained below) by clicking HERE. Excerpt:

The proclamation by the Life Amendment Political Action group that Sen. George McGovern and other U.S. senators are "baby killers" does not meet with the approval of Bishop Paul Dudley of the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese....

Bishop Dudley said he was writing a letter to all clergy in his diocese asking the people of the parishes to treat the matter "with kindness and love" and not to involve themselves with politics and personalities.

The story caused an uproar. First, Kranz had mistakenly attributed the "baby killer" quote to the Life Amendment Political Action Committee. In fact, the quote had been made by "Americans for Life" which had no connection with South Dakota pro-life organizations. A curt correction was run the next day by the AP:

The Associated Press erroneously reported September 5 that the Life Amendment Political Action group had referred to Sen. George McGovern and others as baby-killers. The group which made the statement is known as Americans for Life.

Second, Bishop Dudley claimed to have been misquoted in the story by Kranz. Shortly after the publication of the AP story, the South Dakota Right to Life organization published an article in its newsletter headlined "Bishop Dudley Urges Political Involvement." You can read a pdf copy of the article by clicking HERE. The article included a letter Bishop Dudley had written in response to the AP story, which is excerpted below:

A recent AP news article has given rise to misunderstanding of my message on political involvement in the Right-to-Life issue. The article stated that I asked people "not to involve themselves with politics and personalities." That was misleading. I did state that I was writing to our priests and urging them to keep politics and personalities of politicians out of the pulpit. At the same time, I urged priests to motivate our people to fulfill their duties as citizens by getting involved in the political process.

Kranz was inaccurately quoting organizations and priests in his zeal to protect McGovern's political vulnerability on the issue of abortion. The Right to Life newsletter's article goes on to quote a letter to the publisher of the Mitchell Daily Republic and all daily newspaper editors written by the state coordinator of the Life Amendment Political Action Committee, which reads as follows:

This act of irresponsible journalism has had a devastating effect upon many people in the state of South Dakota. Attempts at correction have been spotty at best and unsatisfactory. Even the most concerted efforts at correction would never completely overcome the damaging effect of such careless reporting. One cannot be certain that the corrections reached everyone who heard or read the original report; and even if they could there is the overriding influence of first impressions.

It is hoped that Mr. Kranz will be informed of the seriousness of his act and reprimanded for such careless journalism.

Clearly, Kranz was making efforts to undermine conservative politicians and enhance the prospects of liberal politicians twenty years ago, and continues to do much the same thing today. This past Sunday, Kranz wrote a column on the tiff between Native American activist Russell Means and John Thune. Of course, Kranz never wrote anything at length about Russell Means' endorsement of Thune last winter. Kranz's rich history of bias continues unabated.

Welcome, Argus Leader readers

Well, I guess I get to eat a little crow. I will do so happily. The Argus Leader has a front page, top of the fold story on South Dakota blogs today headlined "Blogging: A venue to rant, rave and review." Excerpt:

[Jon Lauck's and Jason Van Beek's] blogs accuse the Argus Leader of selectively reporting negative stories about Thune and ignoring news that makes Daschle look less favorable. They contend personal relationships and a liberal slant on the editing desk color the Argus Leader's articles.

The newspaper's leadership has dismissed those charges as unfounded.

The charges are not unfounded. For compelling evidence of the AL engaging in selective reporting, read this simple analysis I posted several months ago. I think this selective reporting can be explained at least in part by the concept of institutional bias, which you can read about by clicking HERE. Also, I have listed the "Bombshell Memos" on the left-hand side of this blog, which contain telling passages about the bias of David Kranz, the dean of South Dakota political reporters.

Despite all of this, the publication of today's story on blogs in South Dakota redounds to the credit of the Argus Leader. Jennifer Sanderson is a talented reporter, and her efforts reflect positively on the Argus Leader.

Will the Argus Leader skip NYT story on Daschle in the Hamptons?

DVT notes a story in the New York Times today on Senator Daschle raising cash in the Hamptons headlined "The Democrats' A.T.M." Excerpt:

ASSEMBLED for cocktails at an elegant white house on Ferry Road was something of a Hamptons A-list, featuring dozens of the well-known regulars at Long Island's most exclusive summertime gatherings. Sprinkled in with these affluent second home-owners were a number of other faces that, while familiar, were assuredly not local: the guest of honor was Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and also on hand were his New Jersey colleague, Jon Corzine, and the former presidential candidate Wesley Clark of Arkansas.

But just because these prominent Democrats were mere visitors to Long Island didn't stop them from feeling right at home. After about an hour of cocktails and a short but memorable performance of dueling poetry by the husband-and-wife actors Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Mr. Daschle got up on the back patio to speak to the attendees.

"I have wonderful friends, all of you," said Mr. Daschle, who is the Senate minority leader and faces a tough race for re-election this year. "The good news is that we have all of the money we need to win this election. The bad news is there's about $1 million still in supporters' pockets that needs to come out. You all have moved us along by reaching into your pockets tonight."

Gail Furman, a child psychologist and Democratic activist who played host to the Daschle event, said the senator collected more than $100,000 that evening.

It seems Senator Daschle is a strong voice for the liberal elite of the Hamptons. Will the Argus Leader report this story?

Jury still out

The jury is still out on whether the Argus Leader's story on South Dakota blogs has been spiked. As I wrote yesterday in my post on the subject of spiking, "there is still a high degree of uncertainty about whether that's the case."