All four of South Dakota’s Senate candidates met on Thursday night for a scattershot debate with no clear winner.
{mosads}Democrat Rick Weiland took aim at former Gov. Mike Rounds (R), attempting to portray him as aligned with an “extreme” Republican Party on the government shutdown and immigration reform. Rounds took aim at President Obama, repeatedly citing his comments that his policies are “on the ballot” this fall and suggesting a vote for Weiland would be a vote for Obama. Former state Sen. Gordon Howie, running as an independent, took aim at everyone. And former GOP Sen. Larry Pressler, the other independent in the race, was on defense.
But none delivered a jab or dropped a gaffe that’s likely to derail Rounds from his first-place position in public polling, with just 12 days to go till Election Day.
Still, both Rounds and Pressler provided their opponents fodder for future attacks.
Rounds defended the controversial EB-5 visa program that’s currently under federal investigation and has contributed to his unexpected weakness in the race. The program provides visas for foreigners willing to invest at least $500,000 in local projects, and Rounds touted the job creation and economic growth it contributed to under his watch.
“The idea is to bring economic development into areas that otherwise wouldn’t have had it. Has it been good for South Dakota? Yes, I believe that it has,” he said, though he admitted it “could be made better.”
Sensing an opportunity in that weakness, Democrats are making a late play for the seat, and have poured millions into the race on attack ads highlighting lingering questions surrounding Rounds’s oversight of the program.
On Thursday night, however, Weiland stayed largely above the fray on the issue, suggesting the main problem with EB-5 was the fact it allows wealthy foreigners to “cut to the front of the line” for visas. He also said the program leant to the “culture of corruption” in South Dakota and questioned Rounds’s oversight of the program.
But Pressler and Howie both aggressively attacked Rounds. Pressler decried the “corruption” in South Dakota, and raised the “mysterious death of Mr. [Richard] Benda,” Rounds’s former Cabinet secretary who committed suicide while facing indictment for allegedly misdirecting grants from the program to pay his own salary.
Howie charged that the way Rounds administered EB-5 “was replete with corruption and crony capitalism.”
“The people I’m talking to in South Dakota frankly governor just don’t trust you,” Howie added.
Public polling has shown Rounds ahead, but Pressler the most competitive candidate against him, prompting Republicans to attack both Weiland and Pressler. The former senator offered Republicans a gift when he said in an interview with The Hill that, if elected, he’d be a “friend of Obama” in the Senate, comments that have featured prominently in Republican attack mailers.
Pressler doubled down on those comments on Thursday night, but sought to clarify that he’s also a “friend of Mitt Romney’s,” and doesn’t necessarily agree with Obama on issues.
“It’s been said that I’m a personal friend of Obama’s. That is correct. That doesn’t mean I agree with him all the time,” Pressler said.
He argued South Dakota needs a senator who can work with the president, rather than try to impeach him, and said that he doesn’t agree with him “on hardly anything,”
Pressler’s main pitch to voters hinged on his potential power as an independent, potentially joining with the other independents in the Senate to create a “central force” to break through gridlock.
Rounds, meanwhile, focused the most of all the candidates on national security, mentioning the latest Ebola case in the U.S. in his opening statement and pledging in his closing statement to “lead to keep South Dakota safe and secure.”
And Weiland continued his populist, progressive pitch, calling for the elimination of big money from politics, an increase in taxes on the wealthy and an expansion of Social Security.