If you’re feeling a little confused while reading your local newspaper, that’s not an uncommon occurrence this time of year. The story that’s confusing is the roundup listing all the local candidates running for the Legislature. There’s something about one of them that’s familiar, but you just can’t recall the context.
The roundup typically includes a little biographical data about each of the candidates. Since you’re a good citizen, you dutifully read the story. That’s when you realize what made the candidate familiar — he’s your county’s Democratic Party chairman.
That’s not uncommon if no one else steps up to run for the Legislature. The local Democratic Party chairman has to take one for the team, usually in the hopes that someone more suited to the job will come along. As the election nears, some Democratic candidates drop out. It seems that taking one for the team doesn’t include being humiliated at the ballot box.
South Dakota Democrats are going through something similar this year at the top of their ticket. Their candidate for governor is Dan Ahlers, executive director of the state party. It seems the best Democrats could do was field the candidate who’s supposed to be recruiting candidates for their party.
There was another entrant in the Democratic gubernatorial sweepstakes, but 20-year-old college student Robert Arnold failed to gather enough valid signatures on his nominating petition.
Ahlers does have some qualifications for governor, having served in the Legislature for six years. Still, it looks like desperation when the top guy in the party hierarchy has to be enlisted to run for governor. But at least Democrats have a candidate for governor. The same can’t be said for many of the legislative districts in the state.
Democrats have fielded 13 candidates for the state Senate, and two of those will face off in the only Democratic primary during this election cycle. That means in November they’ll field 12 candidates for the 35-member Senate. Even if all those Democrats would get elected — a tall order in South Dakota — they would still be handing a Senate majority to Republicans.
The odds for Democrats aren’t much better in the 70-member state House where they have fielded 33 candidates. That means, without a vote being cast, Democrats have handed over a majority to Republicans in that chamber, too.
Circumstances are considerably different in the Republican Party, where candidates are crawling all over themselves to get a place on the ballot. Republicans have fielded 58 Senate candidates and will have 23 Senate primaries. In the House, they have enlisted 111 candidates and will have 25 House primaries.
It certainly looks like a few more of those Democratic Party county chairs need to take one for the team. Unfortunately, that team is depleted. A look at the list of Democratic county chairs shows that in 34 of South Dakota’s 66 counties, the chairman slot is listed as “vacant.” It’s hard to have a grassroots movement when there’s no place for the grass to take root.
With just three members in the Senate and five in the House, the numbers for legislative Democrats have nowhere to go but up. It looked like this might be their year with an unpopular president conducting an unpopular war, gas prices soaring and the economy tanking. Those factors might get more people to vote Democratic.
Don’t read this as an endorsement of Democratic policies or candidates. It’s not necessarily the philosophy of Democrats that’s needed so much as their presence. This election cycle, most of the debates on issues will once again be within the Republican Party. They will feature candidates seeking a few drops of contention in an ocean of agreement. Voters are better off with a debate featuring candidates who actually disagree on the state’s path forward.
Voters may want to vent their anger at the polls, but in many cases across the state, that won’t be an option. Once again, this state’s Democratic Party has failed to recruit enough candidates to fill out a state ballot. In November, that will leave South Dakota voters without much of a choice.
— This commentary was written by Dana Hess of South Dakota Searchlight, an online news organization.
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