Ugh, Janklow. Let’s see: He ran in the primary against Jim Abnor in 1986, weakening him enough so that Daschle could knock him off that year, he ran for the House in 2002 and forestalled former Senator Larry Pressler from making a comeback, and then proceeded to run over the speed limit and kill somebody in a motor accident, forcing him to resign and helping to lose the seat to Stephanie Hestreth-Sandlin.
He should have his own wing in the How-to-ruin-your-own-party Museum.
Yup, you pretty much summed it up, and he couldn’t care less what he was doing. At no point did he show an ounce of interest in running against his good buddy Daschle (or Tim Johnson), but he sure couldn’t tolerate ANY Republican holding federal office in the state. I guarantee if he hadn’t mowed down that biker, he’d be plotting how to take out John Thune next year.
BTW, SD had a good GOP Governor named Walter Dale Miller (who became Governor when George Mickelson died in the plane crash). Miller was on course to winning a term in his own right in ‘94 when Janklow *ucked him, too, and stole it away from him. Despicable man.