PIERRE, S.D. -- It’s a beautiful day to be a South Dakotan!
On Friday, Barack Obama’s campaign office announced South Dakota’s
Obama state campaign director. Nathan Peterson will handle the throes
of throwing Obama a huge party wherever and whence ever he plans on
coming to the state.
The
state has 16 delegates who will head to the Democratic National
Convention in Denver, Aug. 25 to 28. According to the Associated
Press, Peterson worked on re-election campaigns for former U.S. Sen.
Tom Daschle in 2004 and Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002. He now works for
Hildebrand Tewes Consulting of Sioux Falls, a political consulting firm.
I
talked with Peterson today and he was pretty excited to add my name to
a media distribution list that will inform me when and if Obama will
head to South Dakota. Peterson said he pretty much is almost certain
that he is.
The
United Sioux Tribes Executive director Clarence Skye, of Pierre, told
reporters last week that they have sent invitations to both Hillary
Clinton’s and Obama’s campaigns to be a special guest of honor at a
traditional Lakota Sioux Pow Wow at a time to fit in any of their busy
schedules.
Skye said he wants to discuss issues facing American Indians with the Democratic presidential candidates.
In the 2006 presidential elections, the five of the nine Sioux tribes in the state —
Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Crow Creek and
Lower Brule — voted overwhelmingly for Democrat candidate John Kerry,
according to a county breakdown of votes from the South Dakota
Secretary of State Web site. Although a couple counties showed a larger
number of votes for Republican George W. Bush, those counties likely
have less land area on a reservation.
With Michigan and Florida Democrats failing to garner enough support
from their respective state legislatures to have a “re-do primary”
after breaking Democratic National Party rules of moving their
primaries up before the Iowa caucuses, South Dakota will now have the
benefit of seeing more attention from the Dem prez candidates when
voters head to the polls on June 3.
Perhaps
we may still have some national news coming out of this state that
doesn’t have to deal abortions, a senator’s slap on the wrist for
letting an 18-year-old legislative page he sponsored sleep in the same
bed as him, and a fat-farmer-former-state representative manipulating
and allegedly extracting eggs from his foster daughter, who also
happened to be a legislative page in the state house.
More information on the county break down of South Dakota’s 2006
presidential election can visit the secretary of state’s Web site: www.sdsos.gov.
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