OPINION

Ellis: Why did it take so long for Obama to visit?

Jonathan Ellis
jonellis@argusleader.com

Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.

Barack Obama makes his first appearance as commander-in-chief in our fine state later this week. It's the first visit by a POTUS in almost 13 years.

That's a long time, 13 years. It's the longest period without a presidential visit since Franklin Roosevelt's in 1936 and Dwight Eisenhower's in 1953.

Why did it take so long, and why was South Dakota the last state for the president to visit? Perhaps now is a good time for some honesty. South Dakota is not Obama country. For a Democrat, he did well in 2008, winning almost 45 percent of the vote. Four years later, he couldn't crest 40 percent.

These days, his approval rating in South Dakota is among the lowest in the nation. Gallup had him at 32.2 percent in February. And when there was discussion about South Dakota being the last state for Obama to visit, I heard more than one Republican say they would rather the state have the distinction of being the only one he didn't visit while president.

But not Sen. John Thune. The state's senior senator has kept it classy.

"We're glad he's coming," Thune said last week. "I tell people he's saving the best for last."

Liked or not, Obama's policies have left their mark on South Dakota. There have been winners and losers, often over the same issue. Take the Big Stone 2 power plant, a coal-fired plant that was scrapped in 2009 after the administration signaled its interest on limiting carbon dioxide emissions. Some argue that consumers lost out on cheap energy; others argue that the defeat of Big Stone means cleaner air and fewer carbon emissions.

So, in anticipation of the president's arrival later this week, let's take a tour of some issues that have transpired under Obama's watch, keeping in mind that some will argue whether they were good or bad.

Let's start with Thune and his former colleague, Sen. Tim Johnson. This was the deal with the two senators: Thune had to say something positive about Obama's policies; Johnson had to come up with a negative.

"I would say the soup's pretty thin when it comes to an answer for that," Thune responded.

But he did find a potato floating around in that soup. To his credit, Thune said, the president has been willing to buck his own political allies to promote free trade agreements. The president is currently attempting to win approval of a trans-Pacific trade agreement. The agreements, Thune said, open more markets for South Dakota's agriculture and manufacturing industries.

But on net, Thune argues that Obama's time in office has seen an expansion of government through regulatory overreach, particularly in the environmental area.

"I think his policy legacy for our state is not going to be a good one," he said.

Johnson's negative was more specific. He credits the president with providing enough federal funding to get the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System to Sioux Falls, but he said Obama "hasn't been all that helpful with the Iowa and Minnesota components" as well as the line to Madison.

Lewis & Clark aside, Johnson points to the president's health reform law, which Johnson supported, as a positive that helped thousands of South Dakotans get affordable health care for the first time.

In 2008, Obama was the pro-ethanol candidate, while Republican John McCain was the candidate calling for an end to subsidies and mandates enjoyed by the industry. During his presidency, as much as 5 millions acres of previously unproductive land has been planted with corn to meet the demand for ethanol — a number that alarms some environmentalists.

But these days, members of the ethanol industry are nervous. Last month, Jim Seurer, the CEO of Glacial Lakes Energy, and Tom Hitchcock, the CEO of Redfield Energy, expressed their concern about the EPA's decision to lower the amount of bio-fuels mixed into the nation's fuel supply. It was the first reduction ever, and a warning that federal support for eventually reaching 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 could be in trouble.

Brian Jennings, the executive vice president of the American Ethanol Coalition, calls the reduction a "hiccup." On balance, he believes the Obama administration has been good for ethanol. But the industry is waiting for a June 1 announcement from EPA about the renewable fuel standard for 2015 and 2016.

"They're off track because they allowed oil companies to distract them from the original intent of the program," Jennings said.

Besides trade and support for ethanol, the Obama administration has been good for agriculture in other ways. Matt Sibley, the legislative specialist for the South Dakota Farmers Union, says Obama's immigration policy is good for the industry.

Let's be clear: Few topics are more controversial right now than immigration. But some business and ag groups like Obama's suggestion that those here illegally be allowed a legal path to permanent residency. They are, Sibley said, fulfilling an important role in the farm economy.

"They're vital to the workforce, and we have to find a way to build a workforce for those farmers and ranchers," Sibley said.

Obama's emphasis on technical education is also good for ag. Farmers, Sibley said, need to know chemistry, computers and complex machinery, and Obama's emphasis on affordable skills training is welcome.

"Producers need to know and understand so much more now to stay competitive," he said.

It's not just higher education. The Obama administration has put its imprint on public education, including supporting data initiatives that would evaluate teacher performance, an idea that doesn't sit well with traditional Democratic allies in the education industry.

Mary McCorkle, the president of the South Dakota Education Association, says the Obama administration has been student focused, and a strong believer in early education and technology in the class room.

Under Obama, states have been given more flexibility to develop programs that work for them, a slight departure from the strict mandates of the Bush-ear No Child Left Behind law.

So loved, loathed or lukewarm, make no mistake, Obama has left a mark on South Dakota. I was reminded of that a couple months ago when shopping at a local sporting goods store. Boxes of ammunition were flying off the shelves amid rumors of another ammunition ban.