Kristi Noem

[existentialist]

One must sympathize with the poor neophyte who, in this season of turmoil and teabags, recently won the Republican primary for the right to run against Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin for South Dakota’s at large seat in the House of Representatives. One must sympathize with her not because she has no chance of winning—indeed she probably has reasonable chances although I will not attempt to quantify them.

Rather one must sympathize with her because—on the strength of her first public statement after winning the Republican primary—she has little clue of the realities she will face if she becomes a member of the United States House of Representatives. She stated that her first priority would be cutting the deficit, and her second would be creating jobs. Any economist worth the name will quickly inform her of the inherent conflict between these two objectives. Any student who has taken Econ 201 has been exposed to the reasons behind the conflict.

This does not, of course, mean that there are no ways to try to deal with both issues at once despite the conflicts, but it is primarily “conservatives”, economists included, who have downplayed the effectiveness of such methods and who have predominantly advocated the least efficient spending in terms of job creation while mocking attempts to deal with both at once.

Examples? Without going into too much detail, it is reasonably safe to say that war spending creates jobs, but it is very inefficient in terms of the numbers of jobs created for the amount of money spent. Contrariwise, an example of spending that creates a relatively high number of jobs per amount of money spent, would be the type of “green jobs” program advocated by President Obama during his campaign, and which the Republicans have been very effective in stopping—or of claiming the benefits in their own districts as their work when they tried to stop infrastructure repairs or improvements and failed. Green jobs also leave behind lasting benefits, whereas war leaves death, destruction, impairment, and embitterment—secondary considerations perhaps, but also true.

This is, of course, the very same Republican Party within which Kristi Noem has just won a nomination to run for Congress.

It is entirely possible that Kristi Noem is no neophyte at all, but merely a hypocrite who thinks and hopes that we won’t catch her contradictions and inconsistencies. Given the weakness of media coverage she may be largely correct. That won’t help her deal with those underlying contradictions and inconsistencies, and certainly constitutes no reason to believe or support her. We must hope that the political process will expose her for what she is.

OK Ms. Herseth-Sandlin, are you up to the task of taking on this personality whom some have dubbed “South Dakota’s own Sarah Palin” (notwithstanding your own support for Bush’s wars and your own tepid positions or lack thereof regarding green jobs?)

Good luck! I would like to see you succeed. To do so you will have to fight.