OPINION

Ellis: Finally, a real debate

Jonathan Ellis
jonellis@argusleader.com

The five who would be senator finally met for a debate Saturday.

It was in Pierre, the state’s charming capital city. It didn’t take chains or whips to force them there, or dogs to hunt them down or even the promise of free booze to entice them to debate. The South Dakota Newspaper Association asked them to debate. Well, everyone knows that’s a request you can’t deny. Not if you don’t want to wake up with a horse’s head in your bed. And so they debated.

The GOP candidates running to replace retiring Sen. Tim Johnson have seen plenty of each other on the Lincoln Day dinner circuit — the fundraising dinners held by the county parties. But the Lincoln Day dinners are tepid affairs. All the candidates — and I mean all of them, from tiny little local offices to U.S. Senate — usually get to stand up and say a few pleasantries.

One word: Boring.

But this here, this was a debate Saturday.

I participated in the debate and asked a few questions. Here’s my take from what I saw.

First off, there were no debacles. No one lost the debate by having a Rick Perry moment when they couldn’t remember key sections of their campaign platforms. So nobody flamed out. This being a Republican debate, they referenced Ronald Reagan several times. That’s just what Republicans do.

This is a primary, and so you would expect the candidates to run as conservatives. But since 2009 and the emergence of the tea party, that has become even more pronounced, and it’s been on display so far in this campaign.

Mike Rounds is presumed to be safely ahead in the standings going into the June 3 primary. But state Rep. Stace Nelson used Saturday’s debate to pound on Rounds. Jason Ravnsborg, a Yankton lawyer, also took a surprising swipe at Rounds in his closing statement.

Inner-party conflicts are delicate affairs. Yes, it’s sometimes necessary to attack your fellow political party member. You’re playing to win. But you have to do it in a way that doesn’t totally alienate the supporters of the opponent you’re attacking. You will need your opponent’s supporters to help you in the general election should you win the primary. This is why primaries can be so damaging to a political party (see Janklow v. Abdnor = Daschle win, 1986).

That’s why primary-election attacks tend to be more nuanced and less in-your-face. Ravnsborg never even mentioned Rounds by name. But everybody knew who he was attacking. It’s also why politicians in primary contests refer to their opponents as “my friend” even as they’re sticking the knife into their friend.

Judging by Saturday’s performance, there’s none of this “my friend” business between Nelson and Rounds. The two were seated next to each other, so that made it even more fun.

Nelson called Rounds a “slick salesman.” And you get the sense that he’s offended by Rounds’ presence.

Politics is interesting in that you can take certain outcomes, present them to people, and get different interpretations of what happened. We have that issue between Rounds and Nelson on the state budgets passed when Rounds was governor.

This is an important issue, because as we noted before, the tea party emerged in 2009, largely out of alarm over the mammoth federal stimulus bill that passed then and the prospects for large budget deficits as far as the eye could see. If you can paint your opponent as fiscally reckless, well, in a Republican primary, you’re doing well.

On Saturday, Rounds said that South Dakota always has balanced its budget. That’s true. But some of the budgets that occurred during the Rounds years relied on the use of reserve funds — in other words, using money from the state savings account. In his last budget, the one he proposed as he was walking out the door as governor and as all that federal stimulus money was running out, he proposed a budget that included 5 percent cuts and the use of more reserve funds.

To Rounds, that’s balanced.

Not to Nelson. Nelson started his first term after Rounds’ last year as governor. Nelson voted for Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s proposal that cut 10 percent and didn’t rely on reserves. To Nelson, that was truly a balanced budget. Not the one proposed by Rounds that included reserves.

Rounds focused his attacks on Washington Democrats who hold the Senate. Those are the bad guys and gals, he said. But he did rise to the challenge presented by Nelson. At one point, he turned to Nelson and called him a troublemaker who recently had appeared at a joint news conference with Democratic Senate candidate Rick Weiland. Why, Rounds asked, would a so-called conservative be hanging out with one of them Obama Democrats?

This was the first real debate. There will be more, I suppose. But there is no advantage for Rounds to do a ton of debates. So if you get the chance to see one, best seize the opportunity.

Reach Jonathan Ellis at 575-3629 or jonellis@argusleader.com.