Shot In The Dark: Omens

June 02, 2004

Omens

Stephanie Herseth beat Larry Diederich yesterday in the race for South Dakota's sole US House seat.

The left is digging to make this into a good omen for the Democrats; in this case, Mark Kleiman:

In any case, it's a second straight red-state House seat pickup for the Democrats. Not a bad omen for November.

Not so much.

The Dakotas are strange places; they are the six safest electoral votes in the GOP lineup, but they consistently send the likes of Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, George McGovern and, of course Tom Daschle to Washington. The reason is simple; farmers are pragmatic. They want a strong nation, but they want their farm program handouts, too.

But Stephanie Herseth - who has to run for election again in five months - will have to vote to the right on most non-farm issues; allying with the left on the war will be political suicide in South Dakota.

Jay Reding and Captain Ed both analyze the results.

UPDATE: Rocket Man from Powerline - a native South Dakotan - notes that the omen may be, in fact, bad for the Dems, especially Daschle: Herseth won by a narrower margin than expected, had to fight a much tougher campaign, and is much less a lightning rod for the disaffection of South Dakota's Republicans:

Tom Daschle was invisible in Herseth's campaign. There has been speculation that he may have hoped that she would lose, on the theory that South Dakotans, most of whom are Republicans, may blanch at the idea of their entire Congressional delegation being Democrats, thereby hurting Daschle in his upcoming race against John Thune.

Don't count it out.

Posted by Mitch at June 2, 2004 07:08 AM

Comments

Was this another missed opportunity for Bush? I think back to the two Louisiana races, and wonder what would have happened had he really gotten involved. All these were close. I guess if you are not a back-stabbing liberal Republican like Specter, you can foget support from this White House.

In five months, she won't have too many opportunities to make a record in Congress that can come back and haunt her, unless the GOP plays tough and pushes some initiatives to force Democrats to take a stand on some controversial issues. GOP plays tough. That's funny.

Posted by: James Ph. at June 2, 2004 09:29 AM

Actually in the Louisiana senate race won by Mary Landrieu, Bush was heavily involved. He personally campaigned for Landrieu's opponent, whose name escapes me at the moment, as did Cheney and other heavy weight Republicans.

I visited the area near the end of that campaign and Landrieu's opponent saturated the airwaves with commercials. It had to be five or six to one.

Still, she lost.

Posted by: Pug at June 2, 2004 01:30 PM

I live in New Olreans. Landrieu's opponent Bobby Jindal blew that campaign in the final week. Landrieu went for the jugular on health care cuts and Jindal failed to respond. He's gonna be elected to the US house this fall though - he "moved" to an extremely Republican district after he lost and is polling far ahead. A smart guy - definitely a comer in Republican politics - but not a great campaigner. I gotta give Landrieu (or the people managing her) credit - she pulled off a tough task. And yes, Bush, Cheney, Dole, etc. all campaigned heavily for Jindal.

Posted by: tom t at June 2, 2004 02:06 PM

Well, shows you what I know. I do remember hearing on Rush during the LA election prior to Jindal's a lot of disgruntlement (is that a word?) about Bush's absence. Still, it would have been nice for Bush to al least stop over to help Thune and Diefdrich.

Posted by: James Ph. at June 2, 2004 08:52 PM