Ousted congresswoman says she has ‘no regrets’

Talk about it

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin admits she was pained by her election defeat, but she’s not ready to announce an end to her political career.

“I can’t assess the odds, but I’m not going to close any doors,” Herseth Sandlin said when asked the chances of her running for office again someday.

In her first interview since Election Day, Herseth Sandlin discussed the campaign, what she’s been doing in the four weeks since her loss and how she will focus her energies once she becomes a former member of Congress. She turns 40 on Friday.

“I felt I did an effective job seeing South Dakota got a fair shake,” she said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Daily Republic. “It was an exciting, wonderful time. I love South Dakota. I was proud to serve.”

Herseth Sandlin, a Democrat, lost to state Rep. Kristi Noem, a Republican, on Nov. 2 but will remain in office until Noem’s swearing-in Jan. 5. Independent candidate B. Thomas Marking finished a distant third in the election.

It was Herseth Sandlin’s second defeat in six general election races for the House. She lost to Bill Janklow in 2002 before defeating Larry Diedrich in a June 2004 special election to replace Janklow, who had resigned in the wake of a fatal car-motorcycle crash he caused in 2003.

Then known as Stephanie Herseth, she again defeated Diedrich in the 2004 general election and breezed to re-election wins in 2006, over Bruce Whalen, and in 2008, over Chris Lien.

In the wake of her two landslide wins, Herseth Sandlin was hailed nationally. The New York Times mentioned her in an article about promising female politicians titled “She Just Might Be President Someday.”

Herseth married former Texas Congressman Max Sandlin in 2007 and ran her last two campaigns under the name Herseth Sandlin.

Noem emerged from the Republican primary and was immediately a threat, with some polls showing her leading Herseth Sandlin.

Herseth Sandlin had been criticized by some South Dakota Democrats for her vote against the health-care reform bill, and a Rapid City doctor, Kevin Weiland, announced his plans to oppose her in a primary. Just as his supporters were ready to submit petitions to place his name on the ballot, top national Democrats interceded and Herseth Sandlin spoke with Weiland, who dropped his plans to run.

Steve Hildebrand, a nationally recognized campaign strategist who moved back to South Dakota, also considered a run against Herseth Sandlin. Hildebrand, a Mitchell native, chose not to run but announced he would not support her.

Herseth Sandlin said the political challenges were difficult to deal with at times.

“It’s been a challenging couple of years,” she said. “Certainly the results on Election Night were very disappointing.”

Herseth Sandlin said she knew it would be a close election. Noem won by slightly more than 7,000 votes, a 48-46 percent margin, with Marking garnering 6 percent.

“It was a wave I thought I could survive,” Herseth Sandlin said, referring to widespread Republican gains. “Politics is all about timing.”

Low profile

Her four weeks between comments to a South Dakota journalist did raise some eyebrows and elicit comments from columnists and bloggers. Most asked one question: Where was Stephanie?

Herseth Sandlin maintained a very low profile after Election Day. While there has been some speculation about where she was, she said she was at her home in South Dakota and admitted to resenting comments that she was planning to flee the state.

“We live in Brookings, so that’s where I was,” she said. “I plan to live in Brookings. That’s the only home we have.”

Andi Fouberg, press secretary for Sen. John Thune, said Thune was very visible in the wake of his razor-thin loss to Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002.

Thune, who then held the congressional seat that Herseth Sandlin does now, lived in Sioux Falls and was seen at the grocery store, at his children’s ballgames and in the community, Fouberg said.

“Senator Thune held a press conference the day after the 2002 election and had conversations with reporters throughout that week and beyond that,” she said. “There wasn’t really a period of silence.”

Johnson has never lost an election, winning five terms in the Legislature, five in the U.S. House and three in the Senate.

Former Sen. Tom Daschle was defeated by Thune in 2004.

Daschle, who was the Democratic leader in the Senate, continued to make public appearances in the days after his loss. He has not run for office again but has remained highly visible, including a brief period when he was President Obama’s nominee for secretary of Heath and Human Services.

Herseth Sandlin said she hasn’t spent a lot of time wondering why she lost or what she would have done differently.

“I think that takes emotional energies away from things that I need to focus on,” she said. “I’m proud of the campaign we ran. As I said on Election Night, I stand by every vote.”

Proud Democrat

Herseth Sandlin said she remains a proud Democrat who wants to “see the little guy get a fair shake.”

Hearing the political label was unusual, since it was a term she seemed to avoid during the campaign. The Daily Republic found the word “Democrat” only once on her campaign website in reference to her father Lars’ campaign for governor in 1986.

Herseth Sandlin has been surrounded by politicians her entire life. Her grandfather was South Dakota’s governor from 1959 to 1960, her grandmother Lorna served as secretary of state and her father, in addition to his run for governor, served in the South Dakota Legislature for 20 years.

Her husband served four terms in the U.S. House from Texas’ First District. Herseth Sandlin said they have discussed politics and campaigns and have swapped stories to help cheer each other up.

“It also makes it hard for him, I think, reliving some disappointments,” she said. “Political losses take a toll.”

After two weeks at home after the election, she returned to Washington, D.C., to cast votes, close her offices and help her staff find jobs. She and her family took a trip for Thanksgiving, but she didn’t disclose where they went, saying she is starting to reclaim a bit of her privacy.

“We needed some time away,” Herseth Sandlin said.

Final votes loom

She was in Washington and en route to a meeting when she called The Daily Republic. Herseth Sandlin said she plans to work hard in her final days in office.

“We also have important congressional business to do,” Herseth Sandlin said, naming the extension of the Bush tax cuts that are being discussed in Congress.

She said she continues to favor a one-year extension of tax cuts for wealthier Americans and would be open to extending them to two years. Those tax cuts, along with tax cuts for Americans who make less than $200,000 a year, are set to expire at the end of the year.

Herseth Sandlin said a vote on extending the cuts is scheduled to be held in two weeks.

“I hope we can find that middle ground,” she said, repeating a theme she used during the campaign. “I hope we can give families and small businesses some relief over the course of the next year or two.”

Herseth Sandlin said she will remain focused on other matters as well, including the passage Tuesday of legislation on the Cobell v. Salazar class-action lawsuit to settle, for $3.4 billion, the decades-old litigation involving the mismanagement of more than 300,000 American Indians’ trust accounts.

“The best we could get in terms of settlement,” she said of the bill, which she voted for Tuesday. “We’re staying on top of those legislative issues. We have to wrap those things up.”

Her final weeks in Congress were made more challenging by the process to prepare for a new session. Herseth Sandlin’s staff members had to vacate their offices at Room 331 in the Cannon Office House Building on Nov. 22. Most have surrendered computers, BlackBerrys and other government property.

Herseth Sandlin’s “office” is now a cubicle in the Cannon Building cafeteria.

Constituents can no longer contact her through her official website and are advised to contact senators Tim Johnson or John Thune.

When callers phone her office, there’s a recording of Herseth Sandlin’s voice saying the staff is “unable” to answer calls and asking the caller to leave a message.

‘No regrets’

Herseth Sandlin and her deputy chief of staff, Russ Levsen, said they have learned the harsh political lesson that election losers are quickly ushered off the main stage in Washington. Levsen said the process may have moved quicker this year since there is such a large incoming freshman congressional class.

“It makes it more logistically challenging,” Herseth Sandlin said of the loss of her office and communication devices. She also has to close congressional offices in Sioux Falls, Aberdeen and Rapid City.

But she said she has a “very talented and focused staff.” Herseth Sandlin said she is working hard to ensure they find jobs and have a “smooth transition to their next professional endeavors.”

She said some have landed job interviews “across the state and here on the Hill” and she hopes they all find employment.

Levsen, who took a break from his post to work on Herseth Sandlin’s campaign, said about 22 full- and part-time staffers are looking for jobs. They will also lose insurance and other benefits within a few weeks after their boss leaves office, he said.

Levsen, 35, is an Aberdeen native who said he may land a job back in South Dakota. He was unwilling to guess what Herseth Sandlin will do now.

“I think she hasn’t yet considered her options. She will have a range of options,” he said. “The only thing she’s said for sure is she wants to spend more time with Zachary and with Max.”

Herseth Sandlin said she is considering job offers.

“I’ve had some very flattering calls and contacts that are interesting,” she said.

But she wants to relax with family and friends for a few weeks and “recharge” her “batteries.”

“We may have lost an election, but we’re not defeated,” she said. “There are no regrets here.”

Tags: stephanie herseth sandlin, election 2010, news, state, politics, fccnetwork