Today we celebrate the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution is indeed a most remarkable document. It covered everything that was missed by the previous Articles of Confederation. Our Founding Fathers even took the imaginative step of allowing the Constitution to be amended, so they wouldn't have to come back every 10 years of so to do the whole thing over! As a result, those same Continental Congressmen would not recognize the present system that is in place. Women have the vote now, there is no slavery, and we even get to vote for our own Senators. Indeed we've come a long way.

     DWU had a Democracy Project video about political campaign reform at Java City at Noon today which was most enlightening. It was videotaped in 1996, yet some of the issues that were covered are still around today. The big difference is this new thing called Super PACs that I really don't understand. One thing is for sure, people still want to get the money out of politics. I doubt that will happen.

     One reason I decided to wait to bring back the Holabird Advocate until next year was because I wanted to see how the election went in November. It was a custom of mine to endorse political candidates, and I wanted to avoid that during this election cycle. Of course it doesn't really matter, since this site has only 5-6 Readers on any given day. the current exact figure is 5.5 (I wonder who that half Reader is)! But  seriously, I feel that I must endorse in print all the politicians to whom I donate money in the interest of full disclosure. 

     This year there has only been 1 such politician. His name is Kyle Schoenfish. Kyle is running as a Republican in the District 19 State House race. I also donated to his campaign in 2010 when he ran as a Democrat. His party may have changed, but I believe Kyle to be a man with the same intelligence, honesty, integrity, and compassion that I'd like all of South Dakota's statesmen to have, regardless of party. Only one thing gave me pause when I was asked to donate. That was the fact that he is not running in my district, District 20. If I could to any of the voters in Kyle's district, I'd tell them that I could have donated to anybody I wanted to, but chose freely to donate to Kyle because I had the chance to get to know him while we were students at DWU. Even though he is much younger than I, he took the opportunity to get to know me, and I'm glad that he did. Anyone who takes the time to get to know Kyle will be glad that they took that chance! I'll close with this pledge. If I'm wrong about Kyle Schoenfish, If I discover he isn't as honest as I've told you, I'll go over to his home in Scotland, SD myself and smack him in the face with a kuchen from Pietz's Kuchen Kitchen!
Have a Happy Constitution Day! God be with you and do the best you can!