Dykstra Wins Primary - Now It's On!

Congratulations to Joel Dykstra on his primary win last night. In looking at the candidates, even I saw that Joel was the best of the three. I mentioned earlier that I was holding back on my anti-Dykstra posts until this primary. I wanted to be courteous to Joel and, honestly, why would I want to go to all that effort if Joel ended up losing?

Y'know, in some ways I feel sorry for Joel. He was competing for the last seat on the Titanic because whoever won last night only won the right to be creamed by Tim Johnson in the fall. Joel isn't going to get much help in this battle. The RNC is busy funneling what little money they have into the races of Republican incumbents who are pretty much fighting for their lives. The Republican's biggest hope was a candidate who could fund him/herself... and Joel can't. And I don't think South Dakota donors are going to compete with Johnson's war chest.

If Joel has anything good going for him, it's his use of technology. I've been impressed with his constant use of YouTube and blogging and other stuff. More Republicans should do that because they are in danger of being seen as out-of-touch by the younger generation (remember the "internet is a series of tubes" comment and how Republicans almost backed out of the YouTube debate?).

I'm going to have a lot to talk about over these next five months. I'm glad he's going to be talking about his legislative record because I want to talk about that too. I want to talk about how he's been the head of every effort to stop increased education spending. For the last two years, the state Senate gets a great bill together and then it gets to the house and dies. And I find it shocking that Joel worked to hard to stop those efforts since he was on the Canton School Board. You'd think he would support increased funding for teachers. I also want to talk about how he's happy to increase the salary for legislators but not for teachers.

I want to talk about how Joel votes on the wrong side of social issues. He supported the amendment to the South Dakota constitution to discriminate against SD citizens who love each other and want to get married, but can't because they're gay. And I want to talk about how he constantly says stupid things like how he believes "rape and incest" is just a "buzzword" which has won him the support of the radical rightwing crazies in the state.

I want to talk about his history working for the oil industry. It's not surprising that he supports drilling in ANWR... it would give his old bosses more money. No, we don't need that kind of thinking in Washington. We need people who will break the oil industry's death grip on this nation. Joel won't do that.

I want to talk about Joel's version of "change" and how it's exactly the same as what we've been getting from Republicans for the last eight years. That kind of thinking has put our economy in the toilet and gotten us stranded in an endless war in a country that we should not have invaded.

So congrats to Joel Dykstra on his win. Now game on!