From the Black Hills to the Big Sioux, the Dakota Town Hall Podcast.
Hosted by Murdoc in the West and Jake in the East, Featuring South Dakota Searchlight’s Seth Tupper, and Stu Whitney from South Dakota News Watch
New episodes drop weekly!
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Read along with this week’s transcript from Dakota Town Hall
Murdoc: Text your war chat buddies and tell them about the new episode. It’s another Friday afternoon here in South Dakota. And that means it’s time to punch into South Dakota’s most listened to political podcast with Jake in the East. I am Murdock in the West and you are once again on Dakota Town Hall. You might be listening here on the cowboy here in Rapid City. Maybe you are in your favorite podcast player. Maybe you’re hate listening to us on YouTube right now, wherever you may or how are listening to us. We sure appreciate it as we’re kicking strong here in your three year three beginning of your three.
Jake: Yeah, season three.
Murdoc: Season three. Oh, well, you know, Jake, they one one would say you’ll hear somebody say, man, there sure is a shortage of journalists and journalism. But you wouldn’t notice that on today’s episode of Dakota Town Hall.
Jake: You certainly would not
Murdoc: Packed full of journalists.
Jake: Certainly would not. We have two great journalists here in South Dakota that are writing a lot of great pieces, both commentary and just straight news. The long time journalist here in South Dakota, Stu Whitney currently writing for South Dakota News Watch, as well as the editor of the South Dakota Searchlight, Seth Tupper, gentlemen, welcome to the show.
Whitney: Good to be here guys.
Tupper: Thank you guys. As far as the shortage of journalists, I’m pretty sure Stu and I could come up with a list of maybe 200 former journalists that we worked with in South Dakota. Yeah, while there’s still a lot of strong journalism being done in the state, the numbers ain’t quite what they used to be. That’s for sure.
Murdoc: You’re like a real hearty nine man football team, though. You’re stout in your hand.
Tupper: There you go.
Jake: You know, Murdoch, with our episode coming out next week, there’s a chance that we’ve been kind of hanging out with some big wigs in South Dakota politics. Maybe we get on a stupid group chat that we’re on. We could sneak our way on something Rodin’s doing.
Murdoc: What would be like the Jim Hagen would accidentally include us in some sort of fun Vegas trip or something?
Jake: There’s a non-zero chance. We’re in their phones. It’s a non-zero chance.
Murdoc: Come on, secretaries. Loop us in.
Jake: We’re too big loudmouth. We couldn’t stay quiet like that guy could. That’s no shot.
Whitney: Seth and I don’t get lucky like that. We don’t have stories like that world-class exclusive just fall into our lap by finding ourselves on a text chain with attack plans. We’re not quite that fortunate unfortunately.
Jake: Can you imagine that evening, though, that when you get added to that, you just, what the? Like just, you’re a shocker.
Murdoc: I still can’t get, listen, we’ll talk about South Dakota. The emojis, it’s weird. It’s emoji. The same emoji I used like a hot chicks thing on Instagram is they’re using to talk about, you know, bombing Yemen or whatever. It’s insanity.
Whitney: Yeah, we’re talking about a building that was detonated. You’re probably talking about civilians in addition to their target that lost their lives and were treating it like, you know, Fortnite or something. So it’s, uh, it’s not the kids that apparently we’ve lost to video games. It’s the defense secretaries.
Tupper: And you know, Stu, you know, you say we’re not going to get lucky, but, you know, Kristi Noem might have some of our cell phone numbers in her phone.Somehow, maybe, you never know.
Murdoc: that’d be so rad.
Tupper: That’s our ticket to the top right there.
Jake: I mean, just imagine Austin got somehow getting into a group tech with Kristi Noem and see how that goes over.
Whitney: You might think your on with Kristi Noem and it’ll be Austin Goss.
Jake: That’s good, Stu. All right, Stu, you, as usual, are popping out some great articles over at South Dakota News Watch. I want to bring you on, kind of talking about some of your recent reporting. You had two articles in the middle of March, kind of talking about both the future of the public party as well as the Democrat Party. So let’s start there. Start with the Republican Party?
Whitney: Yeah, I mean, trying to get a sense of the shift that we’ve all seen, you know, toward the populist movement, you know, it’s, I think we, it’s no surprise that a lot of that has occurred in the Trump era, but I think it’s unique to South Dakota in that it’s not really your traditional MAGA thing. It’s more of a populist movement based on some niche issues here in South Dakota with the, that became kind of under the umbrella of landowner rights, you know, with the pipeline and the prison.
And a lot of these people were initially sort of involved in this election integrity thing and then sort of, you know, flying that banner that we had to get to the, to the root of all these quote unquote election fraud. And that didn’t quite have as much traction. I think they were kind of dismissed in a lot of, in a lot of ways. The landowner rights thing, they definitely found some traction. And now you’ve got, you know, we have the primaries where they clearly went after some incumbents that had voted against that had voted for the landowner rights package landowner bill of rights.
And Toby Doden was part of that. And, and you know, so then it’s like, okay, how does it manifest itself? Well, it manifests itself with elite, you saw the leadership changes in peer, you know, John Hansen speaker of the house at all. And then you saw these pretty well structured plans that have been forged under the Nome administration and taken over by Rodin that were considered to be sort of establishment pro business blueprints, like the prison and the, and the pipeline are now correct. And now we’re both on pause and you got Governor Rodin who was in favor of both those things now saying, okay, well, we’re going to pause where we’re going to reset. So he’s become the follower in chief. He’s playing, he’s playing.
Murdoc: oh, No, jeez.
Whitney: That’s where we are.Yeah.
Jake: That’s a good lead though.
Murdoc: He’s coming in tomorrow, man. Oh boy, that caught me off guard.
Jake: So where, where does this go then if we have it and I’m just quoting you, the follower in chief instead of a leader out there, where does this go? I mean, like the pipeline is dead. I mean, they won that fight beat that into the ground.
Whitney: Yeah, it’s all this dead.
Jake: Where does this populist movement go then from here?
Whitney: Well, that’s what I referenced in the story. You know, is it the dog that caught the car? You know, the, you know, once you, once you’re sort of the rebel and you’re yipping and yapping and then all of a sudden you sort of achieve your aim of toppling some of these power structures and you are the one in power. How can you maintain that and Jim Eschenbaum, you know, taking over as South Dakota,
Murdoc: Obama voter.
Whitney: GOP central committee is a will be a good test of that, obviously. And I think another test of it will be the clearly the 2026 statewide elections. That would be the next stage in sort of this if you want to call it a takeover. What sort of staying power does this movement have. Because if you went, you know, maybe you do win a primary, then what happens in the general election. So that’s the fascinating part of this is definitely what the next stage is.
Jake: I’m kind of curious, I mean, I go to Eschenbaum a little bit. I mean, he was a Democrat less than a decade ago and like a true Obama voter. I’m kind of curious, like, are there undercurrents that a lot of people consider liberal conservative, they’re going to kind of see themselves through on this populist movement because you have someone is a former Democrat now leaving the party.
Whitney: I think yeah, there’s an opportunity there. I don’t know that this I ever was a pure conservative movement.
Murdoc: I’m going to get a pony, Listen yourself. No, that’s not gonna happen.
Whitney: Well, let me just say that the movement is not didn’t have a real underpinning in the conservative movement. A lot of there are a lot of what we call moderate Republicans that are more conservative than a lot of people in this populist movement. But I do think there’s an awesome opportunity for a little bit of backlash. Certainly nationally when you see how people are reacting to the some of the Elon Musk DOGE stuff.
President Trump’s numbers are approval numbers are sinking fast. You always see some backlash in the midterms. But will there also be another element of that in South Dakota there’s a lot of people weren’t real pleased with how that legislative session went. It was, you know, it was more it was more preventing things from happening than doing things that improve the lives of South Dakotans. So, you know, there’s an opportunity maybe of some sort of coalition of moderate gems and indies. There’s a lot of independent registered voters in the state. So that’s another fascinating element of what’s going to happen in 2026.
Murdoc: What on earth open floor Stu, Seth, I guess we’ll start with Stu because we only got you for a break. Name something that the moderates could possibly do or say to get to drive turnout. Like what would actually get somebody to turn out?
Whitney: I don’t say do you want John Hansen to be your next governor. That’s one thing you could say. I mean, I think there’s a little bit of discomfort with are we going to go this far right as sort of the law of the land in South Dakota
Murdoc: Hoping and praying is hoping and praying that 27 people are going to run for house and eight people are going to run for governor to drive enough turnout to get a bunch of normal people back. That’s that’s Bitcoin risky, buddy.
Jake: I mean, I think it’s less of what the moderates can do. It’s more of what the far right can mess up. I guess I think the reality is like doing things that’s going to be seen as like if you like get some sort of great property tax solution passed through, it’s going to be seen as like a like a far right thing or like a, you know, combined thing. It’s more than like really messing up and being like these Ten Commandment bills or these like jail librarian and bills more that stuff is where they’re going to mess up more. I think the mards can have success.
Whitney: Yeah, there’s a certain amount of that. I think that what the populace could do well and not mess up would be to sort of coalesce their efforts. You know, if you had a triumvirate and you can fill in the names with a Doden and Hanson, Taffy, whatever that are running for different races. Oh, like as a collective as a collective. Yeah, one one for governor, one for Senate, one for House, rather than sort of bickering about who’s going to run for what and sort of eroding each other support, but coalescing their financial support, their events, their message. I think there would be some power in that whether they’re smart enough to do that I highly doubt, but I think I would
Tupper: I would say, you know, I mean that the pipeline folks are perfectly positioned for that because that’s exactly what I’m talking about. That’s exactly what they did on the RL 21 thing. They all got together that events all over in this all over the state and barns and at people’s farms and
Murdoc: Trickin a bunch of people who don’t follow politics into doing a thing kind of pipelines different than running a slate of candidates.
Jake: Yeah, there’s no ego in the pipeline right.
Murdoc: Also, like that’s a hairy stack of bees. You got to keep in line. They’re smart enough. These aren’t a group of dummies full disclosure. I’m not voting for any of them, but I don’t think they wake up in the morning trying to ruin the state. They’re doing what they think they should be doing. But then pack a wild dogs of a conglomerate they have put together right now to get their leadership. You can’t keep all them people happy. Tahedas.
Jake: He wouldn’t seem coalesced too much in this session. I mean, there was a lot of back and forth on issues. I mean, you saw things
Murdoc: dropped every ball they had the opportunity.
Jake: They saw leadership did not have a lot of success this time. Right. I mean, think about when when role killed those two special vehicle bills. That should just never happen if leadership has control of the of the floor.
Murdoc: All them things all of them. I mean, everybody did this, but like they won. So like it was property taxes and we’re going to fix it all and we’re going to get rid of property taxes. In some instances, and it was we’re going to make sure you can buy a house and then we’re going to get this school voucher thing home. Screw that up. You know what I mean? It was just it was fumble after fumble.
Whitney: Well when you talk to like Jim Eshembaum like heading into the session and any of those folks. I mean, their main issue was eminent domain and they they won on that. It isn’t was prison. That was one of their main things they want on that. You’re right that they weren’t able to achieve widespread agenda change or you know, manifest their priorities. But their main stuff, you know, keep the old suggestion, keep the main thing, the main thing they want on prison and pipelines. So you got to give them credit for that. And I do think there’s a, you know, you also have to give them credit as Seth alluded to. There was some real grassroots politicking going on. A lot of those meeting community gatherings that they had.
And obviously you’re looking at, you know, some turnout issues and what have you. But they got their people out to vote. They educated them quote unquote on, you know, what the law that they wanted to be destroyed, the law they wanted them to kill. They won the messaging on that, whether they were right or wrong, because I don’t think that bill had anything to do with it.
That bill had nothing to do with eminent domain, the land or bill of rights, technically. But I think that was some, you know, roll up your shirt sleeves, grassroots politicking. You got to give them some credit for that.
Jake: 100% it was one of the most impressive things done on a statewide level.
Tupper: Not only on the ballot issue, but they got a bunch of their own legislators elected and then they got a bunch of legislators in the leadership. So I mean, if you can organize, they just they just kind of ran a clinic in that over the past year.
Jake: And the question that’s already kind of put forward is, does that translate to 2026? Do they have that same ability to coalesce our own issue? People will see.
Tupper: You know, I think it depends so much on what happens with the pipeline. I mean, as we sit here today, I mean, just just to say something here, there’s been so much incorrect reporting on this pipeline thing when that summit. Ask for a pause and it’s permitting schedule and half the media outlets out there ran with a story that said they gave up on the project or they pulled their permit or whatever.
It just asked for a pause in the proceedings on their permit. Now, maybe they’ll pull out a South Dakota and maybe they’ll give up on the I don’t know, but it hasn’t happened yet. And I don’t think anybody knows where that project is going to be in 2026.
It could be going in the ground. They could have withdrawn the project that could still be fighting it out in courts or with the PUC or whatever. And so, yeah, I think a lot of it’s going to be determined by what happens with that project. And as long as there’s that thing to fight, that coalition stays together to fight it. When it’s not, then I don’t know what happens after that.
Jake: Stu, there are there’s more than one party, maybe fracture more one party in the state. What is it? Was it like 11 of them?
Murdoc: Whitney’s for four!
Jake: What, what’s their plan? How are they going to get voters to vote Democrat in 2026?
Whitney: Well, you know, I talked about the always hope for some backlash. I do think there’s some energy building because of some of the federal downsides that’s going on, which a lot of people on the other side see as a positive thing. A lot of Democrats are going to use as a rallying cry of overextending the Trump debt didn’t have as big of a mandate or any mandate, but he had a narrow popular vote win.
And he’s that he’s overreaching that Elon Musk, not to get into the national stuff, but Elon Musk is unelected and overreaching. So there’s an energy building from that. Now question is, can you turn that into what we talked about with the populist folk were able to achieve going into some of these, not just showing up at community meetings, but really building some of these counting committees up from from the ground floor and getting people in there that are not just returning an email every month, but are active, are activists, essentially, and are going to get their people fired up, they’re going to get the convention, they’re going to find candidates. The dumb finding quality Democratic candidates, there’s so much empathy because, you know, essentially know they’re going to lose in a lot of these places. Right.
Murdoc: It’s like set up races or, you know, do it for the effort.
Whitney: Right, exactly. And, you know, I think there is a merit to not having blank spaces, but it’s hard to get someone to really be fully committed to something that they know they’re going to lose. So I think there needs to be some hope there. Maybe that, you know, Dan Ollars is I think, as as you would expect, hitting the road going around a lot of those county committees. If there is some life there, maybe they get some more support from the, from the National DNC. You know, it’s going to take money to run some of these campaigns that they want to, if they want to have any sort of steak at all and some of the statewide races. You know, you’re almost going to need some of the war horses to get off the bench at some point. Certainly.
Jake: I mean, definitely. Herseth Sandlin is the name, right? I mean, if you get her off the bench, get her out of Augie and running again. That’s someone you can rally around. And I don’t think she would do it. I don’t think she would.
Murdoc: And also it’s always pitching like, well, I can’t believe she won’t blah, blah, blah. Hey, jump off that safe piece of land you’re on into this hot boiling, scalding pot. Doesn’t that sound rad?
Jake: You know what’s much better? augustana hockey . That’s much more fun to watch that than watch anything else. Nothing’s going on in Pierre anywhere else.
Murdoc: What shredded the Democratic Party exists, because don’t forget there’s more working phone booths in Pierre than elected Democrats, is like, you know, the new up and coming leaders can’t get rid of the Ricky Wilens of the world and they can’t stand each other. And they can’t coexist. They can’t coexist. More like moderate Republicans, you know, lose their spine and, you know, buckle up with the harder conservatives more than the Democrats will work together.
Whitney: I do think it has to come back to, you know, we talked about candidates and that is a huge part of it. We got to talk about messaging and what the South Dakota Democratic Party stands for at some point. And, you know, we talked about Jim Eschenbaum, as Jake noted, used to be, you know, his family was Catholic Democrats there in Han County voted for Obama twice. That’s a sort of a perfect example of when the South Dakota Democrats sort of were an ag party, you know, they resonated in some of those rural counties.
Yeah, Kennedy Catholics, man. And, you know, there was a, they were based on ag and economic issues with a little foreign policy sprinkled in. They became in the eyes of many South Dakotans they became more what the National Party became and too much too many social issues. And that did not play in South Dakota clearly. And, you know, post Obama, the party is almost almost ceased to exist.
So it’s not going to happen in one cycle, certainly. But then it’s a huge messaging mission for the Democratic Party, not just finding candidates, but telling people, finding candidates that can tell people what you actually stand for rather than, hey, we want to get back in the game. Okay, why do you why do you deserve to get back in the game?
Murdoc: Or at least just be inviting. Right now, all you got to be is inviting looking right now. There’s a bunch of moderate Republicans that look at Pete Hakeseth drink his way through trying to run the military. And like, you know, that doesn’t look that appealing. I’m not saying right. I’m not saying everybody should pop parties. I’m not really making a position of it. But if I was the Democrats right now, I just look inviting to normal people. And don’t do this every day.
Jake: I wouldn’t touch social issues. I would talk about economics and that’s about it.
Murdoc: I’d touch social issues in the sense of like locking up librarians, you know, when these dealings try to get rid of gay marriage next year.
Jake: Yeah. But don’t talk about transgender. Genderism. Don’t talk about LGBT. That’s not going to help. It’s not going to work here in South Dakota. I’m sorry. It’s not the path of winning seats. I know that’s hard for a lot of like young Democrats to stomach. It’s not though.
Murdoc: Even Pete Buttigieg and Gavin Newsom are turning their tail on this, like on a national landscape because, you know, they’re all eyeballing what 2028 looks like.
Whitney: Yeah, it’s really kind of it’s sad because when you’ve got people that are really sort of changing what they believe because they want to become a serious candidate for president. I’m not sure that’s exactly what policy making is supposed to be about, but that’s that’s what politics is about.
So but it is kind of unfortunate that that’s what some of these people have to do. Okay, I’m going to change what I clearly believe because I want to be president of the United States.
Jake: Listen, Stu, when I when I said I was in favor of marijuana legalization at my town for and Murdoch was there, I got hissed at. So I know a thing or two about.
Murdoc: I felt so bad. I felt so bad. My friend said that statement and that kind old lady goes.*gasps. Sorry, buddy. Okay, we’re running late. But before Stu leaves, let’s do let’s do let’s do 90 seconds on the early chatter of Sioux Falls mayoral.
Jake: Okay, I like that.
Murdoc: If you don’t mind.
Whitney: You know, the name that a lot of people are talking about is Christine Erickson. She’s has not downplayed that talk. I think she’s copy a serious, serious contender former city council member, former state legislator, got a lot of connections can raise money is not seen as overtly. She’s clearly Republican but not seen as overtly reactionary. She’s pro you know, you’re going to want people that are pro business. You got a lot of people that are nervous in Sioux Falls right now on the development side about some of the things that are happening in pierre. They’re going to want somebody will play ball with them and they will get people out to vote. So Jamie Smith, you know
Jake: heard that name.
Tupper: Democratic legislator, by the way, if that happens, but that’s another problem for Democrats.
Jake: Hey, I’m going to return it.
Murdoc: Mayor Mike!
Whitney: He’s did a pretty good in my opinion, did a pretty good job the last time around. He loved being mayor. Obviously he had he had aspirations of higher political office that are clearly either on hold or simply not going to happen now or maybe not on hold.
Murdoc: I hear I hear that I hear his name thrown in the head of the gubernatorial as well.
Whitney: It’s it’s possible. It’s possible. But I think mayor is probably more likely, but we’ll see how that plays out.
Jake: What about Cynthia Mickelson? I hear that name a little bit on the fringe like maybe her.
Whitney:That would be fascinating. And I think she’d be a great candidate. She did a great job on the school board. She’s obviously well connected. It’s about as well connected as anybody. She’s a lawyer. She’s about as pro business as you get. She’s a rational Republican. She’d be a great candidate. I might even vote for her.
Murdoc: what happened to that sublime cover band kid wo ran last time.
Jake: Depp and bomb. Yeah, I’ve heard his name floated to it. It’d be one of the Democrats running. What about that?
Murdoc: Who’s that goober? Who’s always at the city council meeting?
Jake: Zokaites
Murdoc: There you go. David Z.
Jake: His slogan is Zokaites will excite us. I love that guy.
Whitney: He just wants to be part of the parades.
Jake: He’s great. You know, have a mayor election without him.
Murdoc: I think if you run for mayor 27 times, you should just be able to be in the parades and stuff. We should just like honorary mayor David Z.
Whitney: You know, Selberg, Marshall Selberg, I don’t think he’d be a serious threat. Alex Jensen name. I mean, but I think Erickson is a very serious, obviously very serious contender. Nicholson would be Jamie Smith is interesting. But yeah, it’s going to be a fun race. If we ever get 10 hanging out of there now, apparently there’s a, you might stay longer than anticipated because of the state law that they passed, but What state law that they buy?
Murdoc: I don’t understand what that mean.
Whitney: When, when, uh, city, when municipal elections can be held. So he might actually, they may not hold the election until. June or the, or November. So he could stay in office like almost a full calendar year.
Murdoc: Not like run again and stick around.
Jake: I’ll thank you. But he might be stuck with it.
Whitney: So it’s not an FDR situation. All right.
Murdoc: He is Stu Whitney. He is the reporter or a reporter at South Dakota News Watch. A wonderful organization. If I may say so, if you guys don’t follow their news, a lot of the news you read in your local community is often generated from South Dakota News Watch. They do a wonderful job keeping this state informed. And they’re a rag group of people. And Stu, you’re always a great guest, man. Go Tigers.
Whitney: All right. Appreciate it, guys.
Murdoc: Coming up next, Jake, Seth ‘Top Rope” Tupper. From South Dakota Searchlight, It’s next on Dakota town hall.
Jake: Welcome back to Dakota Town Hall. It’s opening day as we’re recording here, opening day of the MLB season. The twins just came back three to four bases, better player on second and third. I can’t call baseball. I realized that I don’t know how to call baseball. Two outs. Top of the sixth.
Murdoc: Watch the show. Brock Meyer will teach you how.
Jake: Oh, I’ve heard that’s really, really good. I need to watch that.
Murdoc: It’s juist great. Cubs play the Diamondbacks tonight if anyone was wonderin.
Tupper: Nobody was, but anyway. Nobody was. Go Twins.
Murdoc: Listen, I don’t shade on the twins just because they’re not my team. We don’t have to worry about it until the most unlikely World Series. You know, that’s what happened.
Cubs, we won that World Series and now you guys don’t care about us at all, do you? You’re like, you got it. Now you’re toast. You’re fine. Fine. That’s fair.
Jake: I hear that, actually. Seth, Seth, Seth, Tupper. All right, you’ve been writing some good articles. Stop rope. Tupper. I love that article. The article that I will be bringing up with our interview tomorrow with the good governor Larry Rodin. We’re going to be tomorrow.
It’ll be live on your favorite podcast player and the cowboy next week. But you described kind of governor Rodin as the reset governor. Noem said there’s no going back, but turns out it’s plenty of time to go back.
Tupper: Yeah, I mean, I was I mean, it’s been sort of obvious to anybody who’s been watching that, you know, Governor Rodin, that’s been really explicit and repetitive and just he’s everything to reset, reset this, reset that, reset the prison, reset the property tax debate. He says it all the time. And so I just found that, you know, really funny. You know, I mean, it was just right. And the theme of baseball was like a ball set on a T right there.
Murdoc: I went, are you trying to audition for the New York Post headline writer?
Tupper: No, no, but I was just sending a story to my staff. What was it? The New York Post today actually had a story about a former governor. Noem Kristi. Noem appears to have worn $60,000 gold Rolex during El Salvador prison. Son, wait a minute. No, that was Daily Beast. Sorry. I thought it was it. But anyway,
Murdoc: Yeah, I saw that on my now. My internet shows me in reasonable hater stuff to know him. And I try to keep that in mind because, you know, wherever.
But like it did, it didn’t, it wasn’t a good look. If that ends up being true. It’s her with her nice gold watch standing in front of a bunch of tattooed Venezuelan while they’re always naked in them prisons. I don’t know why that is.
Tupper: I don’t know either.
Murdoc: I suppose it’s harder to prison fight naked, right? Just if you think about it.
Jake:Yeah, I mean, yeah, I’m a little bit of a diggity out of it.
Tupper: But yeah, I just thought, you know, she, she of course wrote a book as we all, you know, I don’t know if anybody’s ever heard of the book that Kristi Noem wrote, but she wrote this little book last year, you know, got a little bit of attention and it was titled No Going Back. And that was on purpose because she claimed that Donald Trump is the way of the future and he broke politics and that’s great.
And that’s what that’s the future and there’s no going back. And then, you know, Rodin has been going back on pretty much everything he’s done since he got in office. He literally reached back into the do guard administration, you know, to hire Cody Menhison and Matt Michaels as to his first important hires. You know, he pushed reset on the prison sort of debacle that Noam had sort of let roll. He pushed reset and finally brought, whether you like it or not, brought resolution kind of to the pipeline debate by signing the eminent domain ban. And you can go on and on and really even broader just his tone, really, you know, having press conferences every week during the legislative session, which is something Christie Noam had given up on doing and, you know, being available and talking to folks being in the state to me.
Murdoc: Him and Tony are on the road so much you think they’re selling crop insurance right now.
Tupper: Exactly. Exactly. And I got to tell you, I mean, I really thought, you know, I think a lot of people did when Rodin took over, he thought, OK, well, he’s a he’s a, you know, seat warmer and then we’re going to have a primary for Governor and Dusty Johnson or whoever’s going to come in and elbow him out of the way. But boy, oh boy, has he has governor Rhodin really surprised people and built a case for reelection and really sort of box some people out here in the early going.
Murdoc: Oh, we’re going to have a primary.
Jake: It reset the primary map in a way that I’d not see coming. So I mean, really before he’s kind of done the session, everyone was like, OK, well, it’s Dusty, it’s Marty and then Rodin’s also there. And now it’s like, Rodin’s going to be a big player in this primary.
Murdoc: And when people ask me about it to your point, Jake, they’re like, well, now there’s three people. It’s Dusty, Marty, Larry. Like they don’t talk about it like they’re those three are for certain. They’re always asking me who else is going to run and I’ll rattle off 20 names.
Jake: I think it’s really going to box Marty out specifically. I think the the ground he had because he’s kind of putting himself in a way that we’re going to get off topic, but we’ll get back. Definitely was in a role like he’s going to be kind of the maga guy to some degree, right?
He’s kind of courting that, you know, close to Pam Bondi, the current. A.J. General. Yeah. And I think Rodin probably gets that because of his closest with with Noem. I mean, it really has changed landscape more than I expected, is what I’m saying.
Tupper: Absolutely. Another reset that he’s done, you know, the reset. Exactly. You can do it. You can tell it yet. So, yeah. And I think it makes the decision a lot more difficult for Dusty, too. And, you know, I mean, time gets away from us here. But I mean, if Dusty’s running, he should kind of be running already, you know, I mean, if we’re going to, you know, we’re talking about a primary that’s a year and what a year and three months for a year and two months away, you know, close. So, I mean, you know, and you see, I think that, that, you know, this is in Dusty’s calculations where you see him introducing bills now to get the Panama Canal back and different things. And it’s like he’s got to protect that right.
Murdoc: So I think it’s something that’s going to be crazy nonsense because we throw out in the house to keep these people happy right now.
Tupper: Yeah, but I mean, he’s got to think about, you know, maybe he’s his calculus may have changed. Maybe he’s looking at, you know, several more reelections to the house now. If suddenly we’ve got Larry Roten in for, you know, at least, you know, the two years of gnome and his own four year term. And that’s, you know, that really, as Jake said, really shifts the political math there for a lot of people.
Jake: You know, Stu called him a follower in chief. I thought that was a bit unfair. I think you look at his recent veto, the veto of that. Was the reason, yeah, of the, of the, the, the, it was voting basically.
Tupper: How are we going to get the senators from every Senate district?
Murdoc: We’re going to do because I wanted to talk about this in this break. So that’s a good transition to it.
Jake: Maybe that was he really bucked the foreign that way. I don’t think he’s following. Yeah, I strong principle based veto.
Tupper: Yeah, you know, when Scott Heidebren ran for governor years ago, he said something I’ll never forget. We were interviewing him when I worked at the paper on Mitchell and he said, you know, there are two kinds of governors. There’s, there’s presiders and there’s activists. You know, of course, Heidebren said he would be an activist governor whenever he ended up losing. But, you know, I thought, I mean, I think a lot of you thought that Larry Rowden was going to be up the presider and chief and he’s proven me wrong. You know, I mean, I don’t think he’s a follower at all. He came in, Kristi Noem never even proposed an idea for property taxes. He came in and took him like two weeks to have a plan and get it passed, which is pretty incredible, you know.
Jake: And there’s a third option, by the way, there’s the third option is rock stars that they know it’s online.
Tupper: You know, now we know that you’re right. Now we know there’s a third option. But you know, he came in and in the issue of eminent domain and the pipeline, which had been festering and simmering for three, four years. He comes in and signs a bill and sort of kind of puts that to rest. You know, I thought he showed a lot of leadership on a lot of things this session and got a lot of people to follow him, follow his lead on property taxes.
You’re right. He issues a veto. So, yeah, I, you know, I think that a lot of people expected him to be the follower in chief, but I don’t think he has been. I don’t think he has been at all.
Jake: Is that? Go ahead. Well, I think, too, you look at him signing that eminent domain bill, he got a lot of criticism for that, saying South Dakota is closed for business. At the end, I hear that side. But the end of the day, I think it’s clear that that pipeline wasn’t going to happen. And that argument’s been lost in it in a statewide election.
They lost that argument. It’s important to close the book sometimes. And he did that. He closed the book to a loud degree on that. And it is what it is, but we got to move on.
Murdoc: Going back to Stu’s follower in chief line, you know, I mean, we can have him back on, I guess, but I would say where the where the follower in chief part comes in, where I feel it’s fair is, but I don’t, it’s not disrespectful. It’s just out of respect. He’s going, he is, he’s going to pull hamstring being nice to Secretary Nome. Out of respect, which probably seems a little follower-y, but like, and I mean this, you know, good for him with a lot of class, having no idea what his personal thoughts are one way or the other. He’s bending over backwards to make sure he’d be nice.
Tupper: Sure he is. But that’s what I point out in my column is then out and then out of in the next breath, he’s saying, we need to reset on everything she did. But you know, I mean, attention to what he does and what he and the failed things he said, it’s not even really that veiled. It’s again, I mean, well, I don’t know how to take that. If you’re other, if you’re the previous governor and your handpicked successor comes in and says, he needs to reset everything you do, I don’t know how you take that as anything other than an insult. I really don’t.
Murdoc: Everybody’s terrified of Donald Trump and the Twitter war and the, you know, band of whatever that is.
Tupper: Yeah.
Murdoc: And we’re more afraid of that than they are the eminent domain people locally. Sorry, Jake.
Tupper: But you know, that’s one of the smart things that Rodin’s doing. You know, I joke about this. He’s saying one thing he’s saying another, but that’s smart politics. I mean, he’s he’s he’s retaining that Kristi Nome connection and the people that like Kristi Nome and voting for. But on the other hand, he’s also signaling and speaking to Republicans who didn’t like her a lot. And, you know, during the legislative session, I can tell you that, I mean, boy, there was a lot of Republicans happy to see her gone. And they were not hiding that feeling at all. And so in a way, who would say that?
Jake: Who would ever say that? Seth, who, that’s so mean to say that.
Tupper: And he’s and he’s throwing out, you know, he’s pitching a big tent, I guess, you know, and kind of a smart way.
Murdoc: Yeah. South Dakota Republicans known nationally as the big inclusive tent that they are.
Jake: Well, when there’s only one party in the state. And it has to be. Right. Right. Seth, we need to go to one more break. But before we do that, I have a question for you. You were talking email. You had some fun reader emails. You wanted to read us. I think we should get some of those before we go to break.
Tupper: Boy, when you write a column that mentions Kristi Noem, and this was commentary, by the way, I was going to point that out. Labeled commentary. You get some interesting emails and returns. I’ll try not to swear. There was some choice words in here.
Jake: We could do some bleepouts. We just bleep out.
Tupper: But yeah. So the one, my favorite one was from a guy who I won’t say his name, but he I’ll just give you the highlights. He said that if I said this to Kristi, home’s face, she would slap me so hard it would wake my great grandmother from the graveyard. He said that he called the column garbage. He said he would prefer people like me should be trash like me should be dropped out to see over infested shark waters. And then he signed off. May a billion fleas nest in your crotch lame brain.
Jake: That was Josh Hire.
Murdoc: Signed Ted Goss.
Tupper: That was that. That was the great one. And so, you know, I actually responded to it. Part of my response was I said, you know, hey, I can’t get angry about your email due to your colorful and creative use of language, which has me laughing. They said, uh, it’s disappointing to see someone resort to profanity and name calling in response to a commentary that contained neither. I simply expressed an opinion. You can express yours. We don’t have to hate each other or resort to vile language.
Murdoc: Suppose I was like, better than you going like, I’ll meet you in the Burger King parking lot next to the days inn.
Tupper: You know, I was, I was playing it fun to try to disarm people like that with just a normal response. Just come out swinging and fly off the handle. And it’s just like, Hey, I just expressed an opinion.
Murdoc: I do that a little too. You’ll always get back once in a while. You’ll get back a, yeah, I’m sorry, man. You know, I was math wife and
Jake: yeah, my boss was like, yeah, that was three little lights ago. I was drinking. It’s always that like, ah, it’s drinking. It’s like, listen to you. You sound like a beating husband. Get out of here.
Tupper: But that’s where it is. And I guess I’ve tried to do my tiny little part here. And I mean, when did it, when did it just because somebody expressed and calmly expressed an opinion? Does that give you the right to just shout to the call them names?
Murdoc: I know we got to go break, but like Stu said it in the first break and I didn’t really want to pick fight with him, but he’s like, I don’t know if he can blame this all on Donald Trump.
That actually right now, I think you can. Was he the, did he get it to the end zone? Yes. Did he get it all the way across the ball field? No, that’s technology in the times and social media.
Jake: Social media is the rocket ship. Trump was just writing it. Like, I mean, like that’s the reality.
Murdoc: He might have, he might have tush pushed it home into the end zone.
Jake: You might have lit it. You might have lit the rocket.
Murdoc: I mean, because now Seth Tupper is an enemy of the state. There was a difference. It’s free, right?
Jake: No, there goes, there goes you up voting for governor next time. Remember that last time he’s on the show? You’re like, yeah, over.
Murdoc: Pinko Tommy. All right, Jake, Seth, top rope Tupper from South Dakota searchlight. We’re having fun here on Dakota Town Hall. And we’ll be right back after this.
Murdoc: On the last lap, thanks for hanging in. You are punched into South Dakota’s most listened to political podcast. And, you know, perhaps the most open minded to the left and the right. You know what I mean? Like maybe us and SDPB are talking to everybody as far as podcast goes. We’re not just talking to our friends who agree each other. We’ll bring on people we don’t agree with once in a while. In fact, we offered a lot of them during the session. Come on all the time. But, you know, got ghosted, got ghosted like Jake’s ex-girlfriend.
Jake: You call him ding dongs. That doesn’t help. I mean, that would probably got tampered that down, right? I mean,
Murdoc: you know what, though? I call Seth Tupper a ding dong. I call us and got a ding dong. I call Caden Whitman a stupid name. They don’t see her shine. She comes back on. I’m goofing around.
Jake: Well, Marty, we called him out to his face and he was happy to play with us.
Murdoc: That’s spineless chicken turned tail and came back on the show.
Jake: I heard Marty is afraid of his own shadow. You know what?
Murdoc: And you know he’ll at least text me back when he thinks I’m stupid or when he thinks we have a good show. You know what I mean? No one’s getting hurt. No one lost their hair.
Tupper: Marty and Joey is a good debate. He’s been that way with us. I got more engaged. I appreciate that
Jake:. I got more comments from that show than I have in a while. That was a really popular show when him and Marty and Role were going off.
Murdoc: I thought he swung a little hard for his first episode. If we’re being honest, you know,
Jake: that was a second.
Murdoc: That’s true. That’s true. Second one. You’re pretty good. First one like little advice here for you first timers, if you’ve never been on the show, you don’t got to lift every weight. You know what I mean? I can’t help myself and we’ll do a lot of the talking for you. And Jake’s pretty good at this and usually Tupper, you know what I mean? They can hold their own. Don’t just hit singles.
Jake: You hear that Larry Rhodin. You hear that Larry Rhodin. Hit a single.
Murdoc: All right. First and foremost. Happy birthday. Donna Schoenbeck.
Jake: Happy birthday, Donna.Twenty two years old on Tuesday. Giver. Also, I. Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. One more thing. My sister, Emily, who’s an it listens more than my mom does. Also turned out to be her birthday last week. And I should also say happy birthday to her. I’d be in trouble if I didn’t say that.
Murdoc: Were you about to forget your sister’s birthday?
Jake: I did not forget. I got her the same president. I got my mom. Really? You don’t know. No, it was a book I liked. I just bought them both the same book. And it’s handy. I’m going to buy for my dad for his birthday. It’s going to be so easy.
Murdoc: Happy birthday, Emily. Dare I say my favorite Schoenbeck. Happy birthday. Don’t worry. I’m buying you dinner tomorrow night. You’re fine. Yeah, I know.
Jake: I was more offensive to Donna. I thought but.
Murdoc: Oh, yeah, that’s fair. Donna, don’t count. She’s the queen. All right. Back to the show. Hey, you know, uh, we started a new newspaper today. Can I talk about this for a second?
Jake: Yes, you can. I’m excited about this.
Murdoc: I mostly mean it in the sense I’m so very proud of our team here at Homeslice. Like almost 60 people work here. We do a lot of goofy things from entertainment. And we have an office in Nashville and we got, you know, Sturgis Rally stuff, we got out hands in a lot of stuff. And, um, a lot of people had to really write articles and, you know, you don’t like we’re lucky enough to have some great editorial partners in the sense of searchlight and news watch Tupper, Stu, these great people who write these articles across the state and the Dakota Scout we have a partnership with.
There’s a local guy here in town that does, he does a Fox sports rapid city. His name is Nate Brown. We went to college together. I love the dude.
He’s going to do a sports. We’ve got local community media doing the community media, right. And so many of our people had to, you know, videographers and photographers and radio disc jockeys who 20 years ago were certainly not doing what they’re doing now in the modern media landscape, learning how to do news reporting. Our ag reporters learning things that aren’t ag and really writing stories. And like, I don’t know, it feels really good. I was really proud of our team.
Jake: So let’s see rapidcitypost.com. Check it out. I’m excited. I mean, if I want to write a commentary now, I know I can just do that now and give it to you. And so I like it.
Murdoc: You know, I’m just, I’m going to sound like Joe Sneevy. News tips. Welcome.
Jake: News tips. Welcome.
Tupper: It’s great. I do have a second. Congrats to, you know, as somebody who’s, you know, started working at newspapers 20 some years ago now and learned how to use a develop photos in a dark room at SDSU and the journalism program. I was going through every evolution of the newspaper business that has happened and it was watched the decline.
I mean, it’s just really exciting to see so many new and different things happening in the media landscape and see some vibrancy come back into, into the media when for a lot of years it just meant that it was, it was a depressing decline for a long time.
Jake: I’d like to read a comment from Dakota War College. The comments are obviously one of the best parts of the
Murdoc: Oh, I haven’t been there yet.I got to go check out Patty’s blog on it. Thank you, Patty, by the way. These little papers must be cash cows.
Jake: Seth, Murdock, are you guys just rolling in money now with these, these, these online papers and stuff?
Murdoc: I, you know, we turned it on today as we record, right? That’s when the press release went out and I’m, I’m, I am yet still waiting for my slush fund of craps money.
Tupper: We’re a nonprofit. And I joke with people all the time that I had to work 20 years and finally get to a nonprofit to make better money and get better benefits than I’ve ever gotten in the media job before. That’s, you know, I’m talking about change in the media. Hold me 20 years ago, you know, I’d have that I’d be with a nonprofit number one, but then, but then, but it would be a better job than I’ve ever had. I just, yeah, I mean, it’s just the industry. It’s been crazy, unpredictable, while a wild ride for sure.
Murdoc: Jokes aside, though, like in the reality of the modern landscape, can, you know, home slice here in Rapid City, we have six radio stations. And just to be real, right? Like six radio stations impact on the market has certainly evolved. That has it 20 years ago. So as a newspaper, so this isn’t hate. Like in the market here, none of this is one ounce of hate to the Rapid City Journal. I love those guys. I think I wish there’s people over there that one day would work here at home slice.
They’re great, talented people, right? But like community media has got to be done from the community code. The just whole entire generation was raised on KOTA and no shade, but it’s ran out of Atlanta. Kellos ran out of Sioux Falls, kind of little lesson that used to be right. KNBN is now owned out of Fargo. Here we are. We’re from here. Community media should be from the community.
Jake: You have to be the same way that we view other people doing podcasts. We welcome it. I mean, it’s more voices are better and people, they don’t, people don’t monolith. They don’t take individual things as all they listen to. I mean, like most listeners are Dakota Scout listeners. They listen to everything else. So they listen to the political junkies.
Murdoc: There’s people who hate listen to this show. Love Toby Dodens, whatever he calls that thing with all the black background where he’s dressed like a vampire, kind of. You know what I mean? Like right on, listen to both shows.
Jake: All right, Murdoch, you wanted to talk. We were talking about you want to talk about. You want to talk a little bit more about this veto, not the veto itself, but the bill that Governor Ronin vetoed recently. I want to maybe go back to the issue if we have, if we have, we have about five minutes left here. Iif I’m getting this right, guys, they were just to boil it down. In order to get a ballot initiative on, you were going to have to get X amount of signatures in every county. Is that the that was, was that?
Tupper It was just a just a constitutional amendment. Not counting. Sorry, not counting. It’s Senate districts. Okay. We did get signatures from every state Senate district equal to five percent of the votes cast for governor in that district in the last general election.
Murdoc: Pros and cons, Jake.
Jake: Pros is guarantees that everyone, every part of the state is represented in an issue cons. It allows one senator to veto an issue. So some of the really, really important people in Sioux Falls, someone in Harding County can veto it.
Murdoc: Yeah. I think that part of it’s tough. I think, um, I don’t think people kind of realize, and I, again, none of this is about one specific issue, but like it’s so you can’t volunteer this on. It takes a half million bucks right now as it is. And if you change into this rule, that money, again, not saying it’s right. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it’s now going to be $3 million to get a ballot initiative to constitute.
Jake: But that was the idea of it. I mean, the idea was to make it harder to get ballot initiatives on silver concert amendments on the ballot. I mean, they’re going to say, no, it’s all about making sure everyone’s represented in these ballot initiatives. Well, like that’s the whole point of voting. Like that’s the whole idea of voting is that everyone can vote. I don’t understand why you put a barrier there, but it’s already exists in the ballot box.
Murdoc: But Seth, I’m with the spirit of it. There was 47,000 things on the ballot. Therefore, nothing passed.
Tupper: Well, at a base level, I mean, let’s get real. This is, you know, Republicans don’t want another abortion rights measure on the ballot, they don’t want Medicaid expansion. I mean, that’s the motivator. But there are, there were some other points made that I thought were interesting. And, you know, some legislators made the argument during the session when they voted to put this on the bill that, you know, hey, the Constitution is supposed to just be for the structure of government, right?
It’s not supposed to be for policy. And, you know, I think they’re right about that. You know, I mean, there’s a difference between the Constitution and just state statutes. And what they’re saying is, if we’re going to have policy debates about abortion and Medicaid and all these things, that should be in statute. It shouldn’t be in the Constitution. So I think there is an argument to be made about that. But, but the way they try to do this, I mean, yeah, I mean, you have to, you have to get the signature from, you know, Bison or whatever to get something on the ballot. I mean, that’s a little extreme.
Jake: It’s always a concern that you have some really, really bad constitutional amendment that’s somehow really, really bad, right? So I’m afraid to put a barrier in front of it. But the thing is, if it’s so bad, I guarantee you can get two thirds of the House and Senate to overturn it, right? And change that.
Tupper: And we are voting yet again, an issue that Shonebeck family knows well on raising the threshold to 60 percent to get it to get a ballot measure passed.
Jake: That’ll be on the ballot. Who’s the primary on that one? Do you know who?
Tupper: That was John Hughes in Sioux Falls.
Jake: It’s wild how these things just keep, I mean, like it came from a centrist person like my father, and now it’s come from John Hughes is on the further right popular side.
Murdoc: Well, I mean, to to we mentioned this earlier and break one, the new leader of the Republican Party who is a former Democrat, who put out, which I assume he did it just to get out of in front of it before it, you know, before the Facebook torn to pieces.
But like he voted for Obama. By the way, I like you see Pap powers right now, you know, dragging him with it, right? Like just, just to, just to all call it what it is.
Like, you know, he’s having some field day with this little bit. To Stu’s point, there’s never been a greater opportunity for, believe it or not, the hard right that is in charge to be like, Hey, everybody, every voice is welcome. Come on in.
Let’s go win this together. The man’s out to get you to make it a wealth gap, rich people versus the farmer. You can steal the soybean farmer right now. These Kennedy Catholics, as Democrats can’t find anymore because they’ve been fox news over the head. You could go get them people and like lock them in.
Jake: I mean, that’s the ideal populism, right? I mean, it’s, it’s all about the, you know, the people populism. Right. So I mean.
Murdoc: But the base of that is uncontrollable.
Jake: That’s obvious. I mean, I am just really curious how 2026 is going to go. I mean, will they coalesce around an individual? Like, do they, there’s so much ego in this and I just don’t know if they will. And I think that the, the, what they put together under their, under their tent, doesn’t necessarily have a singular undertone.
It’s got so many people with different opinions and what they think of different things they want. I don’t think it just melds together into one thing. I don’t think, I don’t think it’s the same.
Murdoc: I do think it will be interesting on that. I think we all agree. It’s going to do it for our time. I want to thank our guests from South Dakota NewsWatch, Stu Whitney, the great long time reporter here in South Dakota. And then of course, been on the show a lot, lady. He’s killing it. Seth Top rope topper. From South Dakota searchlight.
Jake: Thank you. Before we go, I want to do two quick plugs again. Oh, I have three. Sorry. I threw one. Tar camp. If your kid is a teenager, send them a tar camp.
Catherine Brankles, who knew a great job with teenage Republican camp. It’s awesome place. The Humane Stadley here in Sioux Falls is having a their annual gala. It is called paws to celebrate April 12th. Come check it out.
It’s a great time. And last but not least, I really, really, really want a giant map of South Dakota when you pull down from the top. So if you have one or you know, get your hands on one, please contact me. I will pay for it. I want it. Get to me.
Murdoc: I’m still holding out for the animal from the Delbridge or at least an ear or a horn or a tail.
Jake: Oh, reasonable. Mine’s so reasonable. Someone’s going to have one.
Murdoc: Mine’s mine is reasonable.
Jake: What’s the point of doing this show if I can get a giant map of South Dakota?
Murdoc: He’s Seth Topper from South Dakota Searchlight and from Jake in the east. I’m Murdoch in the west. Thanks for listening to Dakota Town Hall. We’ll see you guys next week with Governor Larry Rodin and Lieutenant Governor and show historian Tony Venheizen. See you next week.
