SDGOP Twists SHS Voting Record in Cowboy Mailer

Front of SDGOP Shadow Cowboy Mailer

"South Dakotans are Strong and Independent..."reads the front of a new mailer from the South Dakota Republican Party. The glossy flyer features a manly cowboy in obligatory hat silhouetted against a prairie sunset. It also demonstrates that the local GOP is not strong enough to win a campaign on the merits of their own candidates and policy solutions and has to depend on distorting the voting record of Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

The main thesis of this piece of GOP propaganda is the tried and tired strategy of making the election about the image of Nancy Pelosi. "Stephanie Herseth Sandlin Votes with Pelosi 91.5% of the Time," they warn. The SDGOP pulls that number from the Washington Post Votes Database, which does indeed say that SHS votes with the majority of her party 91.5% of the time.

Inside of SDGOP shadow cowboy mailer

The GOP mails this claim just as FactCheck.org issues a pretty clear explanation of how both Republicans and Democrats exaggerate the significance of the numbers from WaPo's database. FactCheck.org notes the obvious, that voting with the majority is not the same as voting with Pelosi. FactCheck.org then does the analysis I recommended in July and August and finds that a count of actual head-to-head votes on OpenCongress.org puts SHS's Pelosi-match rate at 81%. That's still reasonably high... until you realize that SHS votes the same way as John Boehner 52% of the time. FactCheck.org concludes that those 81% of votes with Pelosi include a lot of votes that are irrelevant to serious policy.

Irrelevant to serious policy... hmm... sounds an awful lot like the GOP and their shadowy cowboy.

Stay tuned: critique of the SDGOP Twilight Cowboy's health care smokescreen coming up!

Herseth Sandlin v. Noem: Let's Debate What's Voted For, Not Who Else Voted for It

Joel Rosenthal got me thinking. In his most recent blog post, Rosenthal mentions the Kristi Noem strategy of pointing out how often Stephanie Herseth Sandlin votes with Nancy Pelosi. Rosenthal wonders how many of those votes are really significant votes and not just procedural votes that even John Boehner would be voting for.

The Stephanie=Nancy meme is oversimplification for the inattentive voter. Instead of taking time to explain how specific policies supported by our Congresswoman doom the Republic, the Noem machine personifies the issue: Pelosi's evil, Herseth Sandlin votes like Pelosi, so Herseth Sandlin's evil!

Right. Pelosi likes chocolate ice cream, too. But that doesn't mean chocolate ice cream is coming to take our guns.

I don't plan to do a full analysis of every vote Nancy Pelosi and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin have agreed on. You can peruse a list of such votes since 2007 yourself at OpenCongress.org. But to give you an idea of the silliness behind the Noem strategy, here's a sample of some actual votes and how SHS compares with Pelosi and Boehner:

Bill	SHS	Pelosi	Boehner
Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Honest Leadership and Open Government Act	Aye	no vote	Aye
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008 Wall Street Bailout)	Nay	Aye	Aye
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (Senate version)	Aye	Aye	Nay
CHIP Reauthorization, 2007	Aye	Aye	Nay
CHIP Reauthorization, 2009	Aye	Aye	Nay
Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery	Aye	n.v.	Nay
Small Business Tax Relief Act, 2007	Aye	Aye	Nay
Protect America Act, 2007	Aye	Nay	Aye
Extend Protect America Act 21 days	Aye	Aye	Nay
2007 Appropriations for troop readiness, veterans care, etc.	Aye	Aye	Nay
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Energy and Tax Extenders Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
FISA Amendments	Aye	Aye	Aye
Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Fair Minimum Wage Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Part D Medicare Drugs price bill	Aye	Aye	Nay
Designating Taunton River in Mass. part of National Wild and Scenic Rivers system	Aye	Aye	Nay
College Student Relief Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Jubilee Act, 2008	Aye	Aye	Nay
Renewable Energy & Energy Conservation Tax Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Ag Appropriations, 2008	Aye	Aye	Abstain
AIDS/TB/Malaria assistance, 2008	Aye	Aye	Nay
Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network	Aye	Aye	Abstain
Ensuring continued access to student loans	Aye	n.v.	Aye
Kennedy Serve America Act	Aye	Aye	Nay
Pay-Go 2009	Aye	Aye	Nay
Defense Appropriations, 2010	Aye	n.v.	Aye
Consolidated Land, Energy, Aquatic Resources Act	Nay	Aye	Nay
STEM Education Coordination	Aye	Aye	Nay
Offshore Oil & Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection	Aye	Aye	Nay
FHA Reform	Aye	n.v.	Aye
Solar Technology Roadmap	Aye	n.v.	Nay
Small Business Financing and Investment	Aye	n.v.	Aye
Idaho Wilderness Water Facilities	Aye	n.v.	Aye

Feel free to peruse that list and other votes. Identify exactly what about the legislation SHS voted for is so bad for South Dakota and the country. If you can do that, great. That's the kind of hard work a politician who wants to go to Washington needs to do: explain to the voters what's actually happening in Washington and how policies actually affect our lives. The personality politics of the Noem campaign are the lazy way out. They insult the intelligence of the voters and reflect poorly on the intelligence of the candidate.

Herseth Sandlin Checks Pelosi Power; Noem Running out of Talking Points

Badlands Blue notes that a Roll Call article throws a wrench in the Kristi Noem propaganda machine. The D.C. press spotlights our own Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin as a counterweight to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's power and a real force in focusing Congress's attention on fighting the deficit (you know, that big ugly thing caused by President Bush):

The first female Speaker’s famous iron grip on her Caucus has been shaken lately by another woman.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made passing a jobs agenda her top priority this year, but an anti-deficit insurgency led by Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), the administrative co-chairwoman of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, has forced Pelosi to scale back her ambitions [Steven T. Dennis, "Herseth Sandlin Goes to War as New Blue Dog Voice," Roll Call, 2010.07.01].

Fellow Dems view SHS as a woman of steel in her own right... and not just planless sloganeering obstructionist as her Republican challenger would likely be in Washington:

“Stephanie is a star,” Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said. “She’s come into her own. She’s got much greater confidence and a steelier backbone.”

"That’s what a good legislator does — she speaks truth to power and she doesn’t shy away from that,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), who represents Blue Dogs in leadership meetings. “It’s never easy to stand up to the Speaker and the Majority Leader,” he said. “You have to learn to get your sea legs, and she has learned that role.”

Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson praised Herseth Sandlin as “a breath of fresh air” and said that although they sometimes disagree, she’s still looking for ways to get something done.

“She’s not a ‘just say no’ person. She’s looking for a third way,” the Connecticut lawmaker said. “That’s been her M.O. since she got here” [Dennis, 2010]

Of course, the Honorable Congresswoman from South Dakota does vote with Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic majority 92% of the time, as she did Wednesday evening on the financial sector reform reconciliation bill. Sure, Kristi, go after that one. Tell South Dakotans that reforming Wall Street is a terrible idea. Tell South Dakotans, "Wall Street got us into this recession; Wall Street can get us out!"

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On voting with the party: OpenCongress.org says that when Speaker Pelosi votes, SHS votes with her 84% of the time, significantly below the average of 94% for voting similarity among all House Dems. SHS votes with Republican Majority leader John Boehner 50% of the time. She votes with my man and model Democrat Dennis Kucinich 86% of the time.