OPINION

Ellis: National GOP rides in with lift for Rounds

Jonathan Ellis
jonellis@argusleader.com

Ten days can mean a lot in a competitive Senate race. Ten days has meant a lot in our competitive Senate race.

Ten days ago, some Republican officials here and in Washington were girding themselves privately for a shocking loss by Mike Rounds to either Democrat Rick Weiland or Republican-turned-Independent Larry Pressler. Internal polling from both parties, as well as public polling, showed that Rounds’ campaign was flat-lining.

Democrats — and by Democrats, I mean local Democrats, not the fools in Washington who prematurely wrote this race off — have been masterful in their use of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program to sow seeds of concern about Rounds. Rounds continues to defend the program and the benefits it brought to South Dakota, but he can’t shake free from the program’s most high-profile project, the Northern Beef Packers Plant, and its bankruptcy. A bankruptcy that includes the loss of state money, the suicide of a Cabinet secretary who served Rounds, questions about how a mid-level bureaucrat carved out an empire for himself and questions about why nobody in the governor’s office or Board of Regents was minding the store.

Nor has his campaign been helped in recent days by the refusal of certain state agencies to release documents related to the controversy. The Board of Regents has been cavalier by refusing to release basic documents. The governor, the attorney general and the regents have not helped the Rounds campaign by declining to release EB-5-related documents.

Unless, of course, there is something in those documents that would not be helpful to the Rounds campaign. Then they have been helpful.

Ten days ago, the situation report on this race was looking good for either Weiland or Pressler, and bad for Rounds. Weiland has, hands down, worked the hardest. Pressler has been Mr. Heterodox at a time when many voters think the two major political parties have sold out the rest of us to man-eating lizards. Weiland and Pressler were on the upswing.

The Rounds campaign was going into cardiac arrest, in large part because of the candidate’s decisions. He hasn’t spent enough time in Sioux Falls. He has spent millions of dollars on an ineffective advertising campaign, yet he’s failed to fire the offenders of that campaign. Successful business owners know that you must weed out incompetence. Rounds has not done that. In the name of “loyalty,” he has rewarded incompetence with more business.

And then there was the pledge Rounds made not to go negative. While his opponents smashed his skull into the ground, Rounds assured the political world in South Dakota that he would be the politician from Sesame Street. That’s admirable and all, but voters at the end of the day aren’t electing Mr. Rogers; they want somebody who is going to dive into the scrum with elbows flying. It was like declaring war but promising not to use your Air Force.

If the race were a boxing match, Rounds would have been clocked, cleaned and KO’d.

But it hasn’t been a boxing match. It’s more like one of those gaudy professional wrestling matches, and a staggering Rounds campaign has reached out to tag its partners for help.

Enter the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC has sent in professionals to stabilize the Rounds campaign.

National money now is pouring into the state for team Rounds to counter the millions that Democrats and Democratic-leaning PACs are spending for Weiland. The big infusion of money is most obvious for both candidates in advertising. An observant person might notice that KELO’s newscasts seem a bit shorter as the station tries to cram in more political ads.

Yes, your weather coverage is going to suffer for a few weeks.

The National Rifle Association, the American Hospital Association and others also are trying to match the Democratic PACs supporting Weiland. They have put in money for print and radio ads.

Behind the scenes, national money is assembling a get-out-the-vote operation. Previously, the Rounds campaign had been relying largely on volunteers and parade appearances to build its GOTV operation. Now, with national money behind the effort, the campaign can hire professionals. Last week, Republican loyalists were getting phone calls offering them up to $15 an hour to knock on doors and make phone calls to help build a GOTV network for Election Day.

Mike Huckabee was in town for Rounds on Friday. Ten days earlier, some Republican officials were chewing their nails, worried that Rounds was a goner. But on Friday, there was a sense of optimism that patient Rounds had been stabilized with the help of national money and talent.

The race, as of today, is a toss-up. Weiland’s tireless campaigning might be rewarded with a Senate seat. Both Weiland and Rounds have leveled their guns on the hapless Pressler in an attempt to win back voters. With no national party behind him, Pressler, unlike Rounds and Weiland, has no cavalry to call.

With a little more than two weeks left, it’s going to be a slug fest.

Jonathan Ellis covers politics and government for the Argus Leader. Reach him at 575-3629 or jonellis@argusleader.com.