While criticizing absent Republicans, Democrats should look for their own candidates

As the editor of the daily newspaper in Pierre, I operated under the rule that editors should edit and reporters should write. This was back in the day when newspapers still had staffs. I had three reporters and they kept me busy at my desk, so it was rare that I would write a news story. 

I can’t remember the exact circumstances but for some reason, one day during Bill Janklow’s second tenure as governor, I was filling in for a reporter at the Capitol and happened to ask a prominent Democrat why his party had such a hard time getting enough candidates for legislative offices. He blamed Janklow, a Republican. 

It was impossible to get candidates to run for office, the Democrat said, because they didn’t want to come to Pierre to be bullied by Janklow. 

In the next century, as a freelance writer, I was once again in Pierre, this time to cover the impeachment proceedings for Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg. During a break in the action, I asked another legislative Democrat why his party failed to field enough candidates for office. He either didn’t understand the question or didn’t want to answer it. He gave a rambling discourse about overcoming the long distances it took to get Native Americans to polling places and how voters had a tough time distinguishing between the values of South Dakota Democrats and the values of those raging liberals in Washington, D.C. 

South Dakota Democrats announce town hall meetings as frustration grows, even among some Republicans

In the most recent election, I used some of this space to praise the state Democratic Party for its efforts to find more legislative candidates than usual. This was a hollow effort, as it turned out that some of the candidates were just ballot placeholders waiting for real candidates to come along, or they simply lost interest. In any case, some of them dropped off the ballot. Democrats, as they traditionally do in this state, ceded majorities in the House and Senate before a single vote was cast in the 2024 election. 

After the 2024 election, the future didn’t seem bright for Democrats in South Dakota. They had just three of 35 seats in the Senate and six of 70 seats in the House. They don’t hold any of the statewide elected offices. But now, in the spring of 2025, they have been gifted with a first-rate recruiting tool and his name is Donald J. Trump. 

During the first months of his second term, Trump and his buddy Elon Musk have done their best to push the federal government into disarray. They’ve fired thousands of federal workers, shuttered federal offices, disrupted services to taxpayers and cut congressionally approved funding. Even usually staid South Dakotans have taken to the streets in protest. 

Now the state’s Democratic Party wants part of the action, promising a series of town hall meetings. These will be held in protest of the state’s Republican congressional delegation’s decision to follow the advice of their party leaders and stay away from the public that they serve. It seems that discretion is not only the better part of valor, it’s also a way to avoid screaming protesters upset about the future of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, federal grant cuts and any number of other Trump/Musk shenanigans that have made it look like the country is run by Keystone Kops. 

Of course people will be at these Democratic town halls to vent and organizers should let them. But they would do well to quietly take some names. Not necessarily the names of the people who complain the loudest or are the most emotional. It would be best to be on the lookout for those who are well-spoken. Perhaps even get the names of some disenchanted Republicans. 

It will be easy for Democrats to appear as the party of reason at these town halls. It should also be easy for them to use these meetings to recruit a roster of candidates to run for office as Democrats. 

The town halls are organized to ask where the state’s Republican congressional delegation has been hiding. If South Dakota Democrats turn in the same woeful effort at candidate recruitment in the next election, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to organize similar town halls to find out where their party has been hiding all these years.