Tim Johnson’s secret to success

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It’s not difficult to get things done, according to an old saying, if you don’t care who gets the credit.

That may be a fitting tribute to Tim Johnson, one of three South Dakota Democrats who served more than 20 years in Congress in the past six decades. He announced his retirement Tuesday at USD, in a typically low-key event that blended humor with touches of sadness.

Johnson was the least charismatic, the least well-known, the least controversial of the three big Democrats. He was also the most politically successful.

George McGovern was a national, even a global, figure for four decades. Tom Daschle rose to become the Democrats leader in the Senate, and a key adviser and mentor to President Obama.

McGovern, who served for 22 years, ran for president three times, and considered races for the White House in two other election cycles. Daschle, who put in 26 years, pondered runs for the presidency in both 2004 and 2008.

Tim Johnson, who almost certainly will leave with 28 years in Congress, never saw himself as a future president, at least as far as we know. He had other goals.

Johnson mentioned a few on Tuesday as he announced his plans to retire from his business in less than two years: He worked to bring needed water to both cowboys and Indians in South Dakota.

Johnson pushed to keep Ellsworth Air Force Base open. He backed projects that boosted his home state, using the old, often-arcane rules of Congress, and was a very effective legislator.

And he reached out to Republicans and independents in SD, and enough of them noticed to elect him to the Legislature four times, to Congress five times, and to the Senate three times. He did so, it’s worth noting, by landslide margins in 6 of his 8 statewide races.

The two times he was in close elections, he defeated Republican icons: Larry Pressler in 1996, and John Thune in 2002. Who else in state history defeated such a pair of opponents in back-to-back elections?

No one.

Meanwhile, both McGovern and Daschle ended their careers as defeated candidates, rejected by the voters of their home state. It stung.

Tim Johnson rolls off into the sunset undefeated, 12-0 in general elections, and 15-0 in all races, with a reputation as a decent, modest and successful politician with a wry, clever sense of humor. He is admired by his fellow vote-chasers, too.

I hope he writes an autobiography, because he has been much, much more than just another politician.

South Dakota voters knew that for 36 years.

Tim Johnson heads home for announcement

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Tim Johnson is headed to his hometown for his big announcement Tuesday.

Sen. Johnson will announce his plans for 2014 at 3 p.m. at the Al Neuharth Media Center on the USD campus in Vermillion. It is widely believed he will announce he will end his political career in January 2015, and will not seek a fourth Senate term next year.

In fact, the Reuters News Service has issued a breaking news alert that Johnson is retiring. It all seems to make sense — he’s 66, his health is fragile, he is trailing in polls to both former Gov. Mike Rounds and Rep. Kristi Noem, and he has made no steps to run again.

It all points to a retirement announcement. What’s next for Tim? He told me last year he would return home, and would not work as a lobbyist.

What’s next for the South Dakota Democratic Party? Whom will it find to run in his place? Former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, and U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, the senator’s son, are considered the leading contenders for their party’s nomination.

And what’s next for Noem — will she challenge Rounds in a GOP primary? If not, will some other Republican seek to run to his right in the June contest?

But last things first. If Tim Johnson does retire after winning every race he has undertaken for office, few will be surprised, but all need appreciate the years of service he gave to South Dakota. He has carved out an independent course, has maintained a moderate to liberal stance over the years, and has been a decent, smart, good man while serving more than a quarter century in D.C.

If tomorrow is the first stanza in a farewell song, it will cap a long and successful career. Before everyone jumps all over the 2014 speculation, let’s remember that.

Johnson will announce plans Tuesday

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Tim Johnson is coming home to make his announcement.

It’s very difficult to not see this as a retirement speech from the most successful politician in South Dakota history. Johnson, 66, is widely expected to say he will not seek a fourth term in the Senate.

His communications director, Perry Plumart, told me Friday night that Johnson will make his announcement in South Dakota on Tuesday. Full details will emerge on Monday, Plumart said, but Johnson talked to Politico today.

Johnson served two terms in the stat House, two in the state Senate, five in the U.S. House, and he is in his third term in the U.S. Senate.

His health, since that traumatic incident more than six years ago, and a poll that shows him trailing both former Gov. Mike Rounds and Rep. Kristi Noem, are surely part of his decision process.

Will his son, U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, try to replace him in the Senate? Will former Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin run for the Senate? Will they end up in a contested primary, or will one run for the Senate and the other for the House?

The conjecture has been raging for months, and it heated up this past week. On Tuesday, Tim Johnson will make his plans clear.

Rounds’ and Noem’s Senate discussion

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Politico is a well-respected news gathering organization that, like a lot of others, is starting to pay some attention to the 2014 South Dakota Senate race.

Politico published a story Wednesday on Mike Rounds, the former two-term Republican governor who so far is the only announced candidate for the Senate seat now held by Tim Johnson. Rounds was in Washington, D.C., a place he once told me he dislikes, to raise money and mingle with politicians and reporters.

Rounds talked about his candidacy, and his expectation that he will be challenged in a 2014 primary. That challenger may be Kristi Noem, who is just getting started in her second term in the U.S. House.

Rounds told Politico he talked with Noem before he announced his Senate campaign, but she didn’t say if she would or would not run against him a primary.

Some folks consider this news. It’s not. I heard it from both of them Nov. 29.

Here’s what The Daily Republic reported that day, and published on Page 1 on Nov. 30:

Rounds said he spoke to Rep. Kristi Noem Wednesday night to tell her he was running, and asked for her support.

Noem, a Republican from Castlewood, won her second term in the House on Nov. 6. She has been viewed as a possible Senate candidate in 2014.

“She said it is too early, she was still thinking about things, but she said good luck and congratulations,” he said. “And I said, ‘That’s fair.’ ”

Noem said she just finished a campaign and is now focused on her duties in Congress. She said she is pushing to see a farm bill passed and watching to see what will happen with the fiscal cliff.

“That’s where I am right now,” Noem said. “I think it’s too early for that. People are tired of campaigning.”

But she said she and Rounds had a pleasant conversation.

“I certainly wish him well in his endeavors,” she said.

Tim Johnson’s seat ‘vacant?’

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Vacant.

That was the word Ben Nesselhuf, the executive director and chairman of the South Dakota Democratic Party used. He was describing what the Senate seat now held by Tim Johnson may be during the 2014 election.

Check this report in Thursday’s Daily Republic for details. But it was an amazing word to hear.

Part of it is that Nesselhuf, and other Democrats, want to lure Rep. Kristi Noem into a primary battle with former Gov. Mike Rounds. The Democrats would love to see those two Republicans scratch and claw each other all over the state next year. Some Republicans are eager for that, too.

Most Republicans and their online minions are also encouraging Democrats to fight it out in a 2014 Senate primary. Both sides are hoping the other will do their dirty work for them, and it may happen.

If that occurs on the GOP side, if Rounds and Noem duke it out to see who is the real conservative, it does two things: It puts the state’s sole House seat up for grabs. A Democrat, say, Brendan Johnson, for example, could win it.

It would also mean the winner of the GOP family fight would emerge weakened for the Senate race. There a Democrat, say, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, for example, could win, giving the state two of the three congressional offices.

As far as the governor’s office. Nesselhuf says the D’s will have someone strong to run against Gov. Dennis Daugaard. Who? Ben says there are a lot of Democrats, names I would recognize, he says, who are itching to run for one of the three offices next year. But he wouldn’t share any.

But first the Democratic Party has to see if Sen. Tim Johnson, the most successful politician in South Dakota history, a man with 12 wins and no losses over his career, a Democrat who defeated Republican icons named Pressler and Thune, wants to run.

Or if he wants to retire, and put the Senate seat up for grabs. We will soon know.

Oh, and of course, Go Jacks! I am an SDSU grad and fan. I think others are compiling what people think of the NCAA tourney. We will keep our eye on 2014, which may be one of the most fascinating years in South Dakota political history.