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Looking at 2012? Thune campaign spending gives hints of presidential prospects
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Candidate
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Aug 23, 2010 03:38pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | John Woster |
| Media | Newspaper - Rapid City Journal |
| News Date | Monday, August 23, 2010 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Sen. John Thune has already spent more than $4.6 million on a re-election campaign that doesn’t have an opponent.
Unless, of course, the campaign he is running now is more about a potential presidential bid in 2012 than the foregone conclusion of his U.S. Senate re-election this fall.
Thune, R-S.D., is running unopposed for re-election to his second term, which will make him the first U.S. Senate candidate in state history to win the office without facing a challenger. Yet he is well ahead in campaign spending of both Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., and her Republican challenger, state Rep. Kristi Noem of Castlewood in the hotly contested U.S. House race.
Thune’s campaign spending is in part the reality of preparing to defend an elite, typically highly contested seat in the U.S. Senate. But there are other forces at work, as well. And they could involve a run for the White House.
“Obviously, this could be the start of a presidential exploratory effort,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He has options there, and he’s going to leave his doors open.”
Without any clear favorites heading toward the 2012 presidential race, Thune stands as a “potentially credible candidate” for the Republican presidential nomination, Sabato said.
“It’s really a wide open campaign at this point,” he said.
And a review of Thune’s campaign spending records shows a national travel schedule that indicates an outreach to donors and expansion of name recognition well beyond what is needed for a South Dakota Senate race. Expense tabs for Newport Beach and Raleigh and Dallas and West Palm Beach mix with Rapid City and Sioux Falls and White Lake and Huron on Thune’s campaign expense records for the past two years. |
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