of his loss. I live here in South Dakota, and can tell you what happened.
First, this is, after all, South Dakota, where republicans almost always win just for having an R next to their name. A republican could kill and eat a baby on live tv and still be elected because he's, well, a republican. Seriously. They have such a tight grip on this state, including the legislature, that I'm not sure anything will ever change that, not even being named one of the top most corrupt states in the country. People bitch and moan about it, but they'll find a way to blame the completely powerless Dems, who are barely alive as a party in this state, and keep pulling the lever for repubs no matter what.
Second, we had the factor of former Senator Larry Pressler being an independent candidate and sucking a lot of potential Weiland voters into his orbit. Rounds, the republican former governor, was so bad and corrupt and deeply into the EB-5 scandal that was a major part of the race (and is a big deal in this state) that several of the state's major newspapers took the unprecedented step of endorsing Pressler instead of Rounds, which had almost never happened before. Rounds actually did pretty badly for a republican in this state, he and his people and analysts and pundits had been expecting the usual republican blowout in these types of races, but he barely cleared fifty percent. And that's only because the RNC and worried PACS began pouring millions of dollars into his campaign a few weeks before the election. Had Pressler not been in the race, Weiland would have done far better. He still may not have actually won, but the percentages would have been far closer.
Third, you have the idiocy of the state Democratic party leadership, which, in the past four years, has lost two of the three federal offices (we only have one congressional rep for the whole state, which is bullshit if you ask me and many others, but that's a whole other can of worms for another thread) that we had and will continue to lose what precious little we do have in the legislature (we have no statewide offices) if they don't pull their heads out of their asses. Instead of proposing a real vision of what WE would do and how, which is what people would respond to, they spend ALL of their time on how bad and corrupt the republicans are. Well, yes, that's true, but you've got to also give people a reason to vote FOR you and not just be AGAINST everything all the time. Plus (and here's the big thing) they have GOT to get realistic and recognize that this is NOT a progressive-oriented state.
One of the reasons we've lost especially badly over the past four years is their refusal to recognize that. They rebuffed Stephanie Herseth Sandlin for running again and then running for the senate seat (and she's the only Dem who could have had a chance, frankly) because she wasn't "progressive or liberal" enough. Except that this state will NOT NOT NOT vote for the kind of liberal progressive they're insisting on. It just won't. It's like expecting Alabama to vote in Martin Luther King, Jr., as governor. Ain't gonna happen. They really need to pull their heads out of their asses on that one.
And, fourth and finally, Weiland had NO name recognition here, in a state where that is very important.
So there are all kinds of other factors that went into his loss other than just his campaigning on Medicare for all. And this state is even more hypocritical than usual when it comes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, because economically we, as a state, rely very heavily on those especially in rural areas where they're the main source of medical payment and income sustenance. Yet they keep voting in idiots (and all three of our reps are now teanutter idiots, sadly) who enjoy their own lavish benefits while doing their best to take such benefits away from their state and away from the very people who pay those benefits. And yet idiots keep voting for them.
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