South Dakota Independent: I'd be a 'friend of Obama' in the Senate

[brooklynite]

Source: The Hill

An underfunded independent from South Dakota has turned the Senate race there upside-down, giving Democrats a renewed hope of holding the seat — or at least preventing a Republican pickup.

But while former Sen. Larry Pressler, who served nearly a quarter century in Congress as a Republican, won't say who he'd caucus with, he told The Hill Wednesday that, if elected, he'd be a "friend of Obama" in the Senate.

"I don't regret those votes, 'cause on that day, that's how I felt," he said of voting for Obama twice, a detail used by Republicans as evidence Pressler is now a closet Democrat.

He said the first time around, he supported Obama's budget plan, which was similar to the "Clinton-Gingrich balanced-budget plan," which Pressler says he sees as a model for the nation. And the second time, Pressler said he supported the president because he spoke out on the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, something Pressler himself is afflicted with from his combat experience in the Vietnam War.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/220307-south-dakota-independent-id-be-a-friend-of-obama-in-the-senate

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This is becoming a really confusing race. On the one hand DSCC is plugging $1 million into the race at the last minute. On the other hand Weiland is polling in third place, and Pressler might be able to take the seat from the Republicans.

[cosmicone]

1. The age of the mercenary senator has arrived

Have vote, will travel .....

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Pressler was a Republican. But he seems like a relatively sane one.

Old school, I guess.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. 'Sane Republican' sounds roughly right, from this Charles Pierce post:

The race to replace Tim Johnson from South Dakota in the U.S. Senate just got a lot more interesting this week. For months, Republican former governor Mike Rounds had been favored in a three-way race between Democratic candidate Rick Weiland and, most intriguingly, former Senator Larry Pressler, whose career has taken a path similar to those favored by bumblebees in a field of wildflowers. He began as a pure Reagan revolutionary when he chased incumbent Democratic senator James Abourezk out of the campaign in 1978. (Up until then, Pressler's main distinction was as the one targeted member of the House of Representatives who not only turned down the bribe offered by the phony sheikh in the ABSCAM sting, but also reported the attempted payoff to the FBI, thereby ratting out the FBI's own hired con-man. He also was the first Vietnam veteran elected to the Senate.) This set off a towering, Dickensian feud between Abourezk and Pressler that has continued right into this campaign.

Since losing to Johnson in 1996, in addition to teaching, Pressler's political trajectory has brought him to a point at which he endorsed the president both in 2008 and in 2012. In 2013, he submitted an amicus brief in support of marriage equality. Then, he decided to run for Senate, telling Tiger Beat On The Potomac:

"I don't think I've moved. I think the party has moved," he said. "I feel like a man without a party...My intent is not to hurt anyone." Pressler's views on social issues would limit his appeal to many conservatives. He supports South Dakota's abortion law, which allows women to terminate pregnancies in the first trimester. He voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, but he now supports gay marriage. "I was wrong, and I have corrected that big time," he said.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Importance_Of_Being_South_Dakota??src=rss