Go THUNE!!!!!!!

[dr. freeze]

as a good friend of his, i am watching this race like i watch a close boxscore late night....lol

http://www.state.sd.us/sos/results/statwide.shtml

check this to see one of the closest Senate races you will ever see in your lifetime....and one that could swing the balance of the country

 

[Felonious Monk]

don't take this the wrong way freeze but you are one good looking dude!

you bastard. :thefinger

 

[dr. freeze]

well Thune lost..by about 500 votes <(.25%)...

very close election......glad you like my picture Monk.....i think i am a nice looking guy myself

Turns out the Reservations put Johnson over the top in SD.....may get ugly.....lots of registration was done on reservations before the election....know a guy personally who runs Winnevegas Casino's human resource department and he said he was confronted by dem. officials to try to get Winnebego natives to register in South Dakota (who were from Iowa and Nebraska).....

i kind of doubt it though....Thune has lots of character to him and he will concede most likely and run again some other day....there will be a recount though but i seriously doubt that that will be enough to win

dems in SD also ran on the fact that we need to keep Daschle as majority leader.....Thune wouldda won easily if not for that fact....well, Daschle is not only not the majority leader anymore he will be flushed down the toilet by the democrats as the minority leader....just a bad bad day for SD....republicans unhappy and dem's unhappy

 

[bjfinste]

All partisanship aside, this was a very ugly race. The special interest groups for both sides used ads to turn it into a hatefest and I think the people here were just sick of both sides. Growing up in WI and MN, I've seen my share of negative campaign ads, but this election was far and away the worst, and both sides were equally guilty. It's sad because both of the the actual candidates seemed like stand-up guys by themselves just with different views, but the damn ads just made it awful. It's unfortunate for Thune because he would've rolled in the gov. race had he chose to go that way, and now he's got to deal with losing this race by an amazingly tight margin (I think the final margin was 528).

 

[beckster311]

I went from the happiest guy at 8:00 AM Wednesday morning (Thune up by 100 votes) to the most unpleastant person after 9:00 (Johnson up by 500).
My brother Doug was interviewed on KSFY about the havock in Mitchell with the counting machines. He had to take a little heat being he's the Davison County Republican Chairman and Election Night County Supervisor...Did get to see Dubya Sunday night at a Thune Rally in Soo Foo...what a stud

 

[Hoops]

I heard some guy named Marty rigged the polls there.

 

[MadJack]

I heard some guy named Marty rigged the polls there.

:lol:

yup, i heard the same thing :lol:

 

[dr. freeze]

some guy named Marty should have spent some more time on the reservations getting out the vote for Thune......

yep Beck...me too.....i stayed up til 5am watching the poll returns.....went to bed knowing it would be close with Pine Ridge still coming in......didn't know so many people lived in Pine Ridge....glad that they are still so heavily democratic though....50 years of welfare from the democrats have led them to becoming the #1 county in the nation for poverty, alcoholism, and murder rate.....what great leadership

i thought Davison would help a little more than it did....also thought Pierre would be a little more pro-Thune.....plenty of places for more Thune votes......

Now SD has virtually no voice in the Senate with Johnson and Daschle going against everything the majority will want....they will just vote against everything including tax cuts, defense spending, etc etc......but i bet they will be for every other spending program.....and i am glad that 2 weeks before the election Mrs. Johnson got the coats and mittons for the Indian children...what a kindhearted woman with no other interests in mind but for the well-being of Native American children......

also i think that the revival of Russell Means may have won the election for the democrats.....that guy brought out the Indian vote.....plus the dem's claimed voter intimidation would happen by the GOP 2 days before the election.....nothing like scare tactics.....that seems to be the only thing they can do now though....scare minorities and old people......

by the way Beck, hows that 30 million$ road from I 90 coming....cant think of a better place to spend that kind of money.....every time i am on it, i see about 10 cars on that stretch....what a joke....

 

[beckster311]

That road is a joke...
Just traveled it yesterday and its under pretty heavy construction.

Marty is too busy holed up in his little office to get out the vote...sure talked a big game, but no action...a little dissapointed actually. Kidding of course...I don't need the wrath of Ironlock on me.

Ironlock V. Daschle 2004

 

[beckster311]

This first quote is the one that pisses me off...the nerve of the guy.

"Every vote was counted; every vote was counted correctly," Johnson told a throng of cheering supporters at a Wednesday rally.

The 528 vote victory for Johnson is within the margin to allow a recount, however. Also, Republicans in Todd and Mellette counties challenged some irregularities there because the polls opened an hour early but were turned down by a judge.

No other charges of irregularities have emerged following the election, despite allegations of voter fraud in and around Native American reservations that clouded the last weeks of the campaign. The final results show that an effort by Democrats to turn out voters on the state's Native American reservations helped push Johnson over the top.
:nono:

 

[dr. freeze]

i heard voters in Shannon County were darkening in ovals not read correctly by machines.....seems kind of fishy if this is true

 

[AR182]

With what went on here and with what went on in Florida in 2000 no wonder the voter turnout is at an all time low.You would think that if the politicians would really care about the public they would have a uniform system of voting & make it easier for certain people to have easier access to vote.

 

[bjfinste]

I just moved to SD this summer- what is this about $30 million for I-90??? I drove to St. Paul last week, and on I-90 from Sioux Falls to Albert Lea, MN- which is a good couple hours, I was passed by one car and passed six. Just dead.

 

[dr. freeze]

it is a 30 mile stretch from I90 to Pierre.....they are spending a million per mile to make it 4 lane.....no one is ever on the road either.....biggest waste of $$ i have ever seen

just another ploy by the liberals (Daschle and Johnson) to buy votes.....

also heard that they were giving out free chips and hotdogs at the voting booths at the reservations....turnout was well over 50% when usually its well below 20%......unreal.....

 

[bjfinste]

Is that highway 83?

Now as you might suspect from the other thread, I am a very liberal democrat. I DO NOT, however, want to debate politics here because I will never be swayed to your beliefs just as you will never be swayed to mine so it's really a waste of time, but I will agree with you on this one Freeze, it seems like a very big waste of money.

On that note, I have an honest question. Even if you threw out the reservations and Thune had won, it would have been by a very, very small margin. I'm curious why the republicans don't win overwhelmingly in this state. I came from a much more liberal area, and I discovered right away that my beliefs are definitely in the minority here. I'll be honest- I'm very glad Johnson won, because I'm a democrat. But I really don't see how the republicans don't sweep up here. Even here in Mitchell it seems to be more conservative than I'm used to, and after you cross the Missouri it gets even more so. I realize the keeping-Daschle-in-power factor weighed in, but I have to admit that I'm still surprised that the democrats can even challenge outside of maybe Sioux Falls (and in the state government, the republicans really DO have a huge majority). It's just surprising to me.

 

[dr. freeze]

its exactly that......the power factor.....

plus republicans had an extremely weak candidate in Larry Pressler.....the dude once walked into a closet thinking the door was an exit.....he stayed in there for a good while before coming out....what he was doing in there i don't know.....

that is how Johnson got his senate seat.....how daschle did i have no clue....that guy is way out of touch with the state

People just thought that Daschle would be able to get more done for the state because he was minority leader....and Johnson would too......if the election were held today knowing that Daschle would not even have a minority position -- which he may stilll but i really doubt it -- Thune would win in a landslide....makes me sick thinking about it