Posted on 07/24/2014 12:36:55 PM PDT by cotton1706
South Dakota Democrats are playing a tough hand in the Senate race, but they thought they could count on a wild card former Sen. Larry Pressler to help the contest break their way.
Pressler seems to have other plans.
Democrats already faced long odds to hold retiring Democratic Sen. Tim Johnsons seat. Obama lost South Dakota by 18 points last cycle, and the state marks the GOPs best pick-up opportunity in its 6-seat quest to win the majority.
The front-runner, popular former GOP Gov. Mike Rounds, faces several foes: Democrat Rick Weiland; state Sen. Gordon Howie, a conservative Republican running as an independent; and Pressler, who served three terms as a Republican but is running as an independent.
Democrats held out hope the race would become competitive if Pressler splintered GOP votes from Rounds. But so far, Pressler is doing the opposite splitting Democrats and extinguishing the partys remaining hopes of keeping the seat.
He seems to be veering to the left, said Ben Nesselhuf, former South Dakota Democratic Party chairman, in an interview with Roll Call. I like this Larry Pressler a lot more than I liked the one in the mid 1990s. His message and Rick Weilands message seem to kind of overlap.
According to a Rounds campaign memo obtained by Roll Call, a mid-June internal poll of 500 likely voters found Presslers supporters were more than twice as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, 48 percent to 22 percent. Also in the survey, a hypothetical head-to-head race showed Rounds with 49 percent, Weiland with 24 percent and Pressler with 15 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at atr.rollcall.com ...
Pressler is effectively a Dem.
Supported BHO.
Pressler sounds like a textbook case of the DC disease. Initially sent there to fight big government and became addicted to power. DemonRATS love big centralized top-down command economies.
Looks like he’s hurting the D’s more than the R’s.
Hope this RINO loses.
As I said, if the GOP establishment looses because RINOs are defeated, it will send them a stark message.
If I lived in a district where a RINO was running for re-election, I would vote for the thrid party conservative and hope the Democrat won.
Crist has a really nice tan just like john Boehner.
That’s about the only nice thing I can say about either.
Crist is about as slimy as a remora.
dear larry.
were you really innocent of corruption during the abscam scandal?
larry is from my home town.
my dad hauled him to school as a bus driver
Pressler taking support from Dems in SD.
The dem chairman’s comments are interesting, I bet he’s wishing he recruited him to run as a rat.
Larry Pressler was a great conservative senator when Reagan was president, just like Thad Cochran and Orrin Hatch. These guys joined Jesse Helms as absolute warriors for our side.
It amazes me how quickly they became leftist scum after the Gipper departed.
That's a good lesson for all in how a strong leader who actually believes in what he says can reshape the political landscape on his own terms. Even the so-called powerful are really sheep looking for such a leader - when one is absent they get led by the power-vacuum-filling MSM.
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