A couple days ago the Rapid City Journal devoted above-fold, front-page, Sunday newspaper space to the subject of whether or not the pro-life community in South Dakota is harboring resentment toward Chris Nelson, and Blake Curd. Read the article if you aren't up to speed on why that might be. The article draws on statements from Secretary of State Chris Nelson, Rep. Blake Curd, Rep. Kristi Noem, former Secretary of State Joyce Hazeltine, Rapid City businessman Bob Fischer, Dr. Allen Unruh and, yours truly.

First, I'll offer some commentary on the "pro-life resentment" toward Chris Nelson.

No question Chris is pro-life. Yet his relentless and costly pursuit of the VoteYesForLife mystery donor has, without question and with good reason, soured some of the most active pro-lifers in South Dakota. It's not uncommon to hear "I'd never vote for Chris Nelson after what he did to Roger Hunt." My assessment is that most agree that initially Chris was just doing his job but the relentless appeals were in no way justified. One pro-life volunteer viewed it as foolhardy male pride commenting to me, "after he lost the first time it became a pissin' contest for Nelson and cost the state thousands - no doubt six figures - so much for fiscal restraint."

In his 2002 Secretary of State race Nelson ran against the now former Planned Parenthood director Kate Looby and pro-life people recall how they… "went out in great numbers for Chris." There is the sentiment that "after all that, look what he did to us." The timing of Nelson making an issue in the press of the Promising Future Inc. donation– the day before the vote - was a really low blow and seemingly calculated leaving some to wonder later if he planned this all along, that he orchestrated his pursuit of the mystery donor to win Democrat votes. 

Speaking for myself I'll share that on a few occasions I lamented how I wished a fraction of that energy and zeal to make sure groups were following the rules was applied to the blatant pro-abort infractions of South Dakota law - i.e. voter fraud, non-compliance to SD law, etc., etc.. Even so, for the record, I didn't jump into the U.S. House race because of pro-life resentments toward Chris Nelson or because I questioned him as truly pro-life. It's going to take some charisma to beat Mrs. Sandlin and I viewed that as lacking with both Curd and Nelson. (Truth be told, I too faced discernible "pro-life resentment" because I was hard on SD Right to Life leaders when they joined efforts with Planned Parenthood in '08. My point is that it's not like pro-life voters are all on the same page on any of this, and that, to our shame, is the major factor in why Initiated Measure 11 failed in 2008.)

Any pro-life votes Chris lost because of his relentless-mystery-donor-pursuit would only be lost to him in the primary. In my view these so-called pro-life resentments toward Nelson, though discernible, aren't deep-seated. If he survives the primary, he'd quickly gain those votes back in the general election, including mine, as well as many more from former Herseth supporters whom she has notably alienated— particularly the far-left Democrats who have vowed to never vote for her again - people who think… at least with Chris Nelson we will get someone who won't promise us one thing and do another… Nelson is at least tolerably palatable to us in that he's fair and obviously not the poster-child of the far right. I wouldn't be shocked to see Steve Hildebrand write Nelson a check, just because,,, the bitterness is that deep, the resentments there are not superficial. (It's not out of the realm of possibility that bumper stickers will start appearing on South Dakota cars with the slogan– Chris Nelson: Tolerably Palatable. Paid for by Former Herseth Supporters for Chris Nelson.)

What I'm saying is that it's a bigger story that some on the left may move toward Nelson in the general election than it is that some on the right are moving away from him here in the primary. I hope Kevin Woster at the Rapid City Journal does a parallel story soon on the notable fractions facing Mrs. Sandlin in her own party - i.e. the Sandlin fundraisers her "friends" are boycotting. If it weren't for the governor race bringing this alienated far-left faction to the polls in November, scores of these far-left Dems would probably stay home. But I'm guessing they will vote in November and if Nelson is the GOP nominee that will help him. If Noem is the nominee, it remains to be seen whether or not they will give Mrs. Sandlin another chance. Statewide, people are waking up to the fact that Mrs. Sandlin hasn't lived here since high school and that fact helps the wife, mom, farmer, rancher, small business owner and state legislator from Castlewood, Kristi Noem.

Now for some commentary on Blake Curd and the so-called "pro-life resentment" toward him. Curd stated yesterday in Woster's Rapid City Journal article that;

“I don’t know how you would categorize me as anything other than 100 percent pro-life,” he said. “I’m pretty proud of the fact that even Roger Hunt has endorsed my candidacy.”

Several thoughts now from my vantage point as one who has sought to keep his ears to the ground of the pro-life movement in our state…

Last summer, a pro-life doctor friend of mine (who relayed the conversation back to me first hand) asked Dr. Curd what his position on abortion was - my friend said Curd's countenance changed, he "did the waffle step" and basically "gave the Tim Johnson answer which is 'I don't like abortion but here's all the reasons why we ought to leave things the way they are.'"  Similar stories about him being on the fence on this issue spread quickly among pro-life leaders.

Pro-lifers notice the absence of Dr. Curd's name from the published listings of South Dakota Physicians for Life doctors in 2006 and 2008. Again I'm just parroting here what I hear - there have been no Curd sightings at pro-life events in recent years nor any checks written. The feeling among some in the pro-life community is that if indeed you are 100% pro-life, that would surely manifest somehow, especially during a period in a state that had a couple of decent shots at ending abortion. It would seem that a truly 100% pro-life person would not write a check to Daschle or anyone backed by Emily's List, as Curd did.

With regard to the above quote where Curd celebrates Roger Hunt's endorsement (and it's too bad Roger didn't give a recent statement himself), it would seem to me Roger picked Curd when his only other option was Nelson.

With Rep. Kristi Noem in the race, everything has changed. If someone with as much skin in the game as I can switch gears and jump immediately to Noem, it's a safe bet that there are others less vested who have and will do so as well.

It didn't take long for abortion to surface again as a topic here on the newly made-over Voices Carry. Today Peter Slevin at the Washington Post ran a story about the vacuum technician Planned Parenthood flies into Sioux Falls every week to dismember unborn children.  Slevin quotes both "Dr." Carol Ball and me;

"I would rather do this without all this hoopla," [Ball] says. "I'm dismayed that it's gone on so long. Why don't they just go home?"

She is speaking of the protesters who sometimes stand outside the clinic and whose legislative victories in South Dakota influence how Ball does her job.

But go home? Antiabortion activists have demanded the same of her.

"I don't want them to come. They're coming to kill unborn children," said the Rev. Steve Hickey, pastor of the Church at the Gate in Sioux Falls and a newly declared candidate for Congress. "I don't believe abortion is health care. I find it to be the lowest form of anything that could be called health care."

Minneapolis vacuum tech Carol Ball also has a couple other gems…

"I think to myself, 'What century do we live in?' " she says.

We wonder that too Carol. What you do is barbaric and inhumane - it's the ancient let's-sacrifice-this-one-in-hopes-that-life-will-be-better-for-us mentality.  Certainly twenty-first century science and medicine aren't on your side. Your heyday was last century and I'm sure you do lament having to use all this new snazzy technology on women - things like sonograms. Sucks to be you in terms of having to have a court order you to give women current information on fetology.  I'm sure it was better back in the last century when we had no data on how abortion hurts women, data on the connection between abortion and breast cancer, and scientific facts on when human life begins and fetal pain. 

Or there is this line from Ball…

"Tears are okay," Ball says she told more than one patient. "We understand tears."

This would have been a good place for Peter Slevin to drop in a quote from the Informed Consent deposition given the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals where a South Dakota woman testifies that she was told to shut up here in the Sioux Falls "clinic" when she started crying. 

I'd write more but  time prohibits. 

Kevin Woster at the Rapid City Journal wrote today about Republican US House candidates Rep. Kristi Noem and Rep. Blake Curd each having past links to Democrat Senator Tom Daschle.

Woster reports that ten years ago Noem attended a Daschle camp to gather intel. Good for her - that tells me she's not afraid to waltz right into the enemy's camp and grab what they've got. (Relax, I use the term "enemy" in a philosophical sense not personal.)

More significantly, in October 2004, Woster notes that in the eleventh hour of the bitter Daschle v. Thune race, Curd gave Daschle money ($2000). He also gave Herseth (aka Mrs. Sandlin) money in '05 ($1000) before, to paraphrase his statement, he realized his initial impression of her was wrong?! Some are hoping for the best and giving Curd a free pass on these donations, but I'll confess it's one of the reasons I jumped into the race. It's not believable to me that at that point in that year, this was just a wealthy guy paying to play.

The treasure always follows the heart and in October 2004 I and every South Dakota Republican that I know was wholeheartedly engaged in getting John Thune elected. 

Pat Powers at Dakota War College asks if any of this matters and if so is anyone willing to say so and put their name behind what they say. Pat, obviously it matters to me and many who supported me. Does forthrightness and conservative philosophical consistency matter in who we send to Washington? I hope so. I am among many who are tired of politicians morphing themselves into whatever it takes to get elected and then changing back into who they really are once elected. I like Blake but his statement troubles me - that he made the Daschle donation because he was worried about legislation that would affect his own bottom line- I'd rather see someone get elected who has demonstrated they more worried about what's good for America than what is good for themselves?

Earlier this week Kevin Woster asked me a few questions about why I entered/exited the US House race and why I immediately went with Noem and not Curd or Nelson. Though my reasons are multiple, I used the phrase "mystery flavor" to refer to my concerns about Curd being the "Romney" in this race (in terms of being a seeming recent convert to conservatism, having very different political associations just one or two election cycles ago, and propelled forward by vast personal resources). I like Chris Nelson a lot but in terms of the charisma needed to beat Mrs. Sandlin - to keep the ice cream analogy going - Chris could be dubbed "vanilla." In light of the mystery flavor and vanilla, I joked honestly with Woster that I'm aware some would consider me the nut. However, Noem is the closest to the 31 flavors which I deem necessary to be the people's choice this fall.

Those are a few of the things I would have never said as a candidate - my plan on the campaign trail was to show myself strong and articulate on the issues.  But even now, from this vantage point, I don't view this as an "early cannibalizing of other GOP candidates." This is the time we need to size everyone up.

Today Rasmussen reports that SD Secretary of State Chris Nelson leads the GOP US House contenders only seven points shy of Mrs. Sandlin.  Rep. Kristi Noem is within 15. Rep. Blake Curd is 18 points down. A couple observations…. first, Mrs. Sandlin is obviously vulnerable.  And second, this shows that Noem is off to a strong start coming into the number two spot barely into her second week (especially considering the Nelson/Curd campaign have been cranking already for six months).  Not sure yet what to make of the male/female voting preferences in these match ups as detailed here in the Rasmussen report;

Incumbents who earn less than 50% of the vote at this stage of a campaign are considered potentially vulnerable.

Herseth Sandlin, who was first elected to the House in 2004, leads state Representative Kristi Noem by 15 points, 49% to 34%. Four percent (4%) like another candidate given that match-up, and 13% are undecided.

Against state Representative Blake Curd, Herseth Sandlin picks up 51% of the vote to her GOP challenger’s 33%. Five percent (5%) favor another candidate, and 12% are undecided.

Herseth Sandlin loses the male vote to Nelson, South Dakota’s secretary of state, by 10 points but runs even among men against the other two Republican hopefuls. She carries female voters by 24 to 37 points against her three challengers.

Voters not affiliated with either major political party prefer the incumbent by double-digit margins over Noem and Curd. Herseth Sandlin and Nelson are essentially tied among unaffiliated voters.

HT: Republic Insider

Last night I reviewed some of the response to my decision to drop out of the US House race and seek the state House seat in District 9.

The Great Plains Observer posts on One of the Shortest Campaigns in History with the leading line "wow that was quick."  Badlands Blue posts "HICKEY: Whoops! Wrong House seat." Republic Insider posts on "The Six Day Candidacy and other oddities of South Dakota's 2010 Campaign Season."  Actually Seth, it was seven days. David Montgomery's headline at the Capital Journal in Pierre was "That was fast."  Constant Conservative says "Hickey Changes His Mind on Race Against Herseth Sandlin." The South DaCola headline is "Jesus wasn't a quitter, Steveo".  All things considered, reactions were mainly generous and no rocks were in the mud thrown.

And the quitter label didn't stick. Twenty-five years ago I was an offensive lineman and in my book it's not quitting if you get out of the way so your team can score. To me this is a team sport and yesterday I simply passed the ball to Kristi Noem who has a better shot. It's hardly the case that I walked off the field and headed for the showers. I'm out here eating dirt so WE can score.

Through the mud on my face I did break out a smile this morning reading Madville Times - Top Ten Reasons Steve Hickey Dropped Out of the House Race. Cory starts off with #10… "Campaign advisers insisted Hickey would have to shave, just like the other two men in the race. A man of principle, Pastor Hickey said it wasn't worth it."  Funny thing is that I was told by a number of politicos that the goat has to go.  For the record, I held my ground despite experts telling me old ladies who would otherwise vote for me wouldn't because they don't trust men hiding behind something.  And on a related note, there is this from a "fan"… honestly, part of me wanted to stay in just to see how that blog developed.