Results?

Suddenly the city is fairly festooned with billboards that would persuade me to re-elect Mike Rounds as Governor of South Dakota. (As if, having not voted for him the first time, when he was a lesser-known quantity, I would vote for him now that he has displayed his true colors.) My favorite shows Mr. Rounds looking all grim and resolute and square-jawed and everything, with the message, "Rounds. Results."

To which I reply, "Results? Really?"

In signing South Dakota's heartless and mean-spirited abortion law, Rounds said, "In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society."

(That he pretty much swiped the statement from Hubert Humphrey is well documented [see http://www.sdhealthyfamilies.org/news-local-7.php and http://tiodt.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-abortion-law-full-of.html, among many others]. Humphrey's quote: "The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.")

My question is and always has been, Does he mean it? So far, the answer seems to be no. According to the Children's Defense Fund [http://www.childrensdefense.org/]:

• South Dakota ranks 17th among states in percent of babies born at low birthweight.
• South Dakota ranks 31st among states in infant mortality.
• South Dakota ranks 34th among states in the percent of children who are poor.
• South Dakota ranks 44th among states in per pupil expenditures.
• South Dakota ranks 46th among states in the percent of babies born to mothers who received early prenatal care.

This does not speak well of how Rounds purports to treat "the most vulnerable and most helpless" in our society. I would argue that the "true test" of a political leader is how well her or she stands by his or her political rhetoric. So far, Rounds is failing the test pretty badly.

Clearly, as is so often the case with right-wingers, once a kid is out of the mother's womb, Rounds's interest in him or her drops to about zero. Certainly Rounds displays little interest--and definitely no "results"--when it comes to adequately funding public education. He and his Democratic opponent, Jack Billion, debated the matter the other day. Here's what the Sioux Falls Argus Leader (it won't be there long: the Argus is not good about keeping articles online) quotes Rounds saying this about school districts that actually manage their paltry finances enough to stay in the black:

"Let's talk about our local districts for a minute, because in the last two years, at the end of the last previous school year, they had $138 million sitting in their general funds, which was an increase of over $13 million from the year before, and their capital outlay (reserve) was at $83 million, which was an increase of almost $16 million from the year before,'' Republican Rounds said.

"So if they're taxing you and not spending it on their kids but putting it in their savings account, let's talk about that, because it ought to be going for the kids instead of into a checking account from year to year.''

Golly, Mike…do you suppose that maybe the money that's "sitting around" is there to be spent on the kids when you and the state legislature fail for the umpty-eleventh time to do anything to fix the state-aid formula? Do you think it's a bad idea to hold a little something in savings in case of unforeseen circumstances? Do you think it's good fiscal management to go into the red every year?

Rounds's opponent, Jack Billion, who is fighting uphill if only because this state hasn't sent a Democrat to the governor's office since the 1970s, had this to say about Rounds's bizarre statement:

"What the governor is telling you is that the school districts ought to spend down their money every year.

"That would be like if you were in business or if you were farming and you would say 'Hey, I'm going to empty my budget every year, spend it all. I'll start every year with zero dollars.' That's absolutely ridiculous."

Doctor Billion is a master of understatement.

Anyhow, billboards notwithstanding, I've yet to see the "results" that Mr. Rounds seems so proud of. Still optimistic, however.

(Oh, but only to a point: It is now obvious even to me that KSFY-TV has decided to ignore the e-mail I sent to them last Thursday. That's okay. I'll just do likewise with their station.)