Opinion: S.D. candidates get their say as June primary season nears

South Dakota is less than five weeks from its primary elections, so the political ads and stories are sure to be increasing in quantity and intensity.

Relax. I’m not going to write about politics, at least not the partisan sort of politics that chooses one candidate or party over another. But with the primary drawing near, I’ve been thinking about a governor’s race I covered as a newspaper reporter eight years ago.

When the 2002 campaign season started, the governor’s chair was open. The incumbent couldn’t run again. The open seat sparked a lot of interest among candidates, and before the filing deadline passed early that spring, seven candidates had turned in petitions in the governor’s race. Four of them were running as Democrats, and three were running as Republicans.

The newspaper for which I worked at the time assigned me to cover the governor’s race. The editors said I should plan on going to some of the forums and other public appearances where some of the candidates would speak and interact with potential voters. I asked how much coverage the paper expected from my race. The answer, boiled down to the basics, was “Not sure. Start out by going to as many of the forums as you can, write about as many issues as you can, and we’ll see how things develop.”

That suited me just fine. Public candidate forums generally are pretty simple work for a reporter. You find a good seat where you can hear the candidates clearly and where you have a good angle to watch the crowd’s reaction, then you just write down what questions are asked and what responses are given by each candidate. The forums in that race were usually 60 to 90 minutes, a pretty modest amount of time to pay attention and take notes. Besides, political forums with candidates usually hold your interest, so it’s pretty entertaining work, as well.

The tough part for a reporter comes at the end of the thing when a cursor is blinking on a blank screen on a laptop computer and the reporter tries to pare down 90 minutes of notes into maybe 800 to 1,000 words of copy. You try to give each candidate relatively equal space, both in fairness to the participants and in an attempt to give the readers a balanced account of what went on at the South Dakota Education Association event, the Corngrowers’ Association panel or the South Dakota Truckers’ convention.

That part really was a challenge eight years ago, because from the start of the primary season right through the June election, most of the groups that were hosting forums were inviting all seven candidates to speak. Now and then, a group just had the four Democrats or the three Republicans, of course. But more often than not, all seven people running for governor were invited, and there were a lot of forums that spring.

I remember looking back after the general election in the fall and calculating that I’d covered more than 30 forums or joint appearances that campaign season. At one of the forums, a candidate talked about high-speed trains running the length and breadth of the country. At another, an ethanol event, I believe, a candidate pulled an ear of corn from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. In the fall, the two candidates left standing participated in a forum with high school students over the distance-learning network. I watched that one from a classroom at Riggs High School in Pierre.

I could go down in the basement today and find clips from my stories of those events. I’d have to dig through an unorganized pile of manila envelopes, but I could do it.

What was said eight years ago isn’t the point of the conversation today. The point is, all of those candidates had all of those opportunities to talk publicly about their goals and programs and beliefs. It was pretty cool to sit in the corner and watch it happen.

Terry Woster’s columns appears Wednesdays and Saturdays in The Daily Republic.

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