By Denise Ross

It wasn’t just John Thune on hand at the T. Boone Pickens presentation in Rapid City Wednesday afternoon. I recognized a few local leaders and politicians, too.

But first, there were these two guys in their matching T-shirts.

The front of the shirts said, “The one thing Obama and McCain have in common.” The part of the back that you can’t see in this photo gives the web address for Black Hills Energy Solutions. (While there’s lots of information about energy conservation and alternative energy, their site doesn’t make it entirely clear what they do.)

Meanwhile, there’s Dem about town Bill Walsh, right, in his signature cowboy hat talking to state Sen. Tom Katus, D-Rapid City, and my old colleague Kevin Woster.

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By Denise Ross

It was part school lesson, part persuasion speech at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Wednesday afternoon when Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens promoted his plan to save America from itself.

(Photos by David Larson)

T. Boone spent a good portion of his half-hour presentation at the dry-erase board writing down numbers to explain where our energy comes from and where our money goes. He even made a pie chart. More on that later.

If you haven’t heard or seen the commercials, this energy guru and billionaire is promoting a plan to convert America to a lot more of its domestic energy. (Click on link above.) He’s pressuring politicians, John McCain and Barack Obama chief among them, to sign on to his plan or come up with one of their own.

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By Denise Ross

Before I get to some of the details from Monday’s field hearing in Rapid City, let’s ponder something that none of use could have imagined back in 2002 — that a Sen. John Thune and a Sen. Tim Johnson would sit side-by-side working on an issue together. That’s what happened at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City.

(Photos by Denise)

Forgive my poor photo editing, but I did not get a photo in which they both looked good, so I cropped 2 shots. Mr. Hoghouse, my staff photographer, had to report to his paying job on Monday so I was on my own.

As you can read from the background panel, the field hearing was about “transforming forest waste to biofuels,” which does seem like a common sense thing to do. I did not attend the entire hearing, but while I was there I heard no objections to the idea.

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By Denise Ross

We all will know within a few days who Barack Obama will choose as his running mate. It could be South Dakota’s own Tom Daschle, even though he gets little mention in the constant speculation about who’s in the running. No matter. This from Politico:

Obama and his inner circle have held his intentions tightly, while a wider circle of aides in Chicago has been kept far enough out of the loop.

George McGovern called Obama’s pending VP pick ”the most closely held secret I’ve encountered in all my years in politics” Monday on SD Public Radio, adding that he has no idea who will emerge the much-anticipated choice.  

And one pundit I heard over the weekend put it this way: The people who know aren’t talking; and the people who are talking don’t know.

Here are a few clues about Daschle’s status on this front.

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By Denise Ross

Check your local listings for the Sunday talk shows. South Dakota’s own Tom Daschle will be a guest on ABC’s This Week with George Snuffalupagus.

Daschle will appear with GOP VP hopeful Mitt Romney and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. That’s a powerhouse line-up, but it looks like they’ve all got powerhouse line-ups this weekend. This Week might be the only show that Conde Rice is skipping.

While we’re waiting for the news to happen, see if you can spot the typo from the ABC News website as it appeared mid-day Saturday.

The headliners talk to George about the Russia-George conflict and election ‘08.

I really do wish that George could stay out of trouble.

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By Denise Ross

South Dakota’s Sen. John Thune would seem to bear little resemblance to Wyoming’s former Congressman Dick Cheney, but the Democratic National Committee now lists Thune at the top of its The Next Cheney website - where it draws direct comparisons between Thune and W but not Cheney.

A fundraising letter paid for by the Thune campaign repeatedly connected George W. Bush to Thune, and emphasized the similarities between the two.

AND …

According to a vote analysis conducted by Congressional Quarterly in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007 John Thune supported President Bush’s position on legislation 84 percent of the time.

Anyway, this splash of Fellini in the ongoing drama that is the 2008 presidential campaign lines up 8 potential McCain VP picks, casting each one as “the next Cheney” one assumes in that one of the eight is likely to fill the same slot on the ticket as Cheney has. It’s part of the push of the message that a McCain presidency would be 4 more years of Bush.

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By Denise Ross

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-SD, backed off his criticism of the FBI after he and others were briefed about the criminal case that the feds were building against the anthrax suspect, Bruce Ivins.

USA Today reports:

Daschle says the evidence against the government scientist accused of carrying out the 2001 anthrax attacks was “complete and persuasive.”

AND …

Daschle, who spoke during a meeting at the USA TODAY bureau in Washington, says he was “very dubious” about the government’s case before the briefing.

Here’s what changed his mind:

• the ability to identify the DNA of the anthrax: “It’s like a fingerprint,” Daschle said.
• the flask used to make the anthrax. “That’s as close to a smoking gun as I think you’re going to get,” Daschle said.
• the limited number of people who were authorized to enter the laboratory.

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By Denise Ross

This is a move I haven’t seen before. SD Dem Party Chairman Jack Billion is going to tell reporters why John Thune as McCain’s VP pick would be like having Dick Cheney all over again.

This from my e-mail box this morning:

Wednesday, August 13, at 12:30 p.m. CDT (1:30 p.m. EDT), South Dakota
Democratic Party Chair Jack Billion will hold a conference call with members
of the media to highlight various aspects of Senator John Thune’s record
that would mean more of the same Bush-Cheney policies if he is chosen as the
vice-presidential nominee.

The call comes in conjunction with the rollout of a new website,
www.thenextcheney.com, which features Thune and other potential candidates for vice president. 

The site features “other potential candidates for vice president”? Hmmm. So anybody would be the next Cheney? I guess we’ll have to hear what gets said. Stay tuned.
 

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By Denise Ross

GOP prez candidate John McCain enjoyed the loud accolades of Harley riders last week during the Sturgis motorcycle rally. Today, he’s probably not enjoying an ad the Dem candidate Barack Obama’s campaign is running against him in Milwaukee. (Listen here.)

Milwaukee is home to Harley-Davidson HQ, and folks there might be interested in McCain’s opposition to requiring the feds to buy American-made motorcycles, reports the local paper’s political blog.

McCain has been a critic of provisions that require the US government to buy American products, saying they are costly to taxpayers and antithetical to free trade.

AND …

“I firmly object to all ‘Buy America’ restrictions, as they represent gross examples of protectionist trade policy,” McCain said on the Senate floor in 2005. “From a philosophical point of view, I oppose such policies because free trade is an important element in improving relations among all nations, which then improves the security of our nation. Furthermore, as a fiscal conservative, I want to ensure our government gets the best deal for taxpayers and with a ‘Buy American’ restriction, that cannot be guaranteed.”

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