GOP leaders not welcome in S. Dakota?

[agates]

http://www.thehill.com/under_dome/061504.aspx

Note to Karl Rove: Better think twice before sending President Bush, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and other top Republicans to South Dakota to campaign for former Rep. John Thune.

In fact, South Dakota state Sen. Bill Napoli (R) thinks it would be better if such national GOP dignitaries focused their efforts elsewhere rather than trying to help Thune unseat Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

“There are a lot of people in South Dakota worried about the Bush administration, period,” Napoli told the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader. “A lot of good Republicans tell me it’s not just the war. They have made a lot of blunders out here.”

<snip>

Napoli, a Rapid City conservative, said he’s concerned that neither Thune nor Diedrich will win in November, adding, “Republicans on the national level are not in tune with South Dakota.”

[Robbien]

1. Are South Dakota Republicans those rare conservatives who

feel big government and deficit spending are not a good thing?

[agates]

3. South Dakota Republicans

are often really libertarians with a conservative social agenda. They are the small-government low-taxes kind. Bush will still carry SD in November but he won't help Thune by campaigning for him.

[Political_Junkie]

2. Bwahaha

That's great!

[0007]

4. Good for South Dakota

[hatrack]

5. The price Bush pays for being a dumbass

In 2002, in the middle of the worst drought in 70 years, he staunchly refused to approve of supplemental emergency drought funding. The drought continues, btw, in the western 2/3rds of the state.

Not only that, but as some sort of half-assed "punishment" for Johnson defeating Thune in 2002, the Lewis & Clark aqueduct funding was slashed. The eastern half of the state has really fucked up their groundwater - it's so full of nitrates that it's unfit for human consumption, and they are having to build a pipeline to Lake Oahe, about halfway across the state. The funding was eventually restored, but not before a lot of South Dakotans were well and truly pissed off.

No wonder they don't want Bush/Cheney/Frist visiting.

[Elidor]

7. I remember wishing that move would backfire

The denial of funding, that is. Bush was playing hardball against Daschle and Johnson. Rove probably thought that would be good incentive for people to vote republican next time. It never occured to him that he would piss off his own base. Political hostage-taking is a losing strategy.

[Jose Diablo]

6. LOL, By all means, send Bu$h, Cheney et al

Repubs need to stick together.

[Raster]

8. "Republicans on the national level are not in tune..."

...with anyone besides their money-grubbing, religious fanatic selves.

[Cocoa]

9. not just SD

Bush is toxic everywhere.