John Thune

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John Thune

John Randolph Thune (born January 7, 1961 in Pierre , South Dakota ) is an American politician ( Republican Party ). He has been the US Senator for the state of South Dakota since 2005 . From 1997 to 2003 he was a member of the US House of Representatives for his state and had run for the US Senate in 2002 without success. He is part of the party leadership in the United States Senate and has repeatedly been traded as a possible candidate for the US presidency.

Family and education

Thune's father Harold is a Norwegian immigrant, his mother Yvonne Bodline grew up in Canada. The parents ran the existing family business, the retail trade Thune Hardware , in the small town of Murdo in the sparsely populated Jones County (South Dakota) for some time and then worked as a teacher or librarian. They had five children; John Thune grew up in Murdo. After graduating from high school in 1979, he studied at the Christian Biola University , which he left in 1983 as a Bachelor of Arts in economics. In 1984 he received a Masters of Business Administration from the University of South Dakota . He has been an outstanding athlete since his school days and was named the "fastest runner" by the US Congress in 2012 by Runner's World magazine .

Thune has been married to Kimberley Weems since 1984; they live in Sioux Falls and have two daughters.

Political career

Beginnings

Former sponsor: Senator James Abdnor

Thune's political career began when the then Congressman James Abdnor became aware of and promoted Thune at a high school sporting event. From 1985 to 1987, when Abdnor had become the US Senator for South Dakota, Thune worked as his associate. Thune served in the Small Business Administration under President Ronald Reagan . In 1989 he returned to South Dakota with his family from Washington and worked first as executive director of the state Republican Party, from 1991 to 1993 as railroad director of South Dakota, and then as executive director of the South Dakota Municipal League, an independent body promoting local communities Administration. Even then, he was considered to be well connected within the political elite of South Dakota.

Congressman

In the 1996 election , Thune ran as an outsider in the Republican area code for the state's only seat in the US House of Representatives . The then Vice- Governor Carole Hillard was considered the favorite of the party leadership , who in May 1996 led a poll with 69 to 15 percent of the vote. With the support of Abdnor and the religious-conservative party wing, Thune managed to win the area code with 59 to 41 percentage points. In the general election in November, Thune, who campaigned against any tax increases and renounced more than three terms of office and pension entitlements in the media, met Democrat Rick Weiland, who is considered to be left-wing and close to the union. Thune won the seat, which had always been held by Democrats since its establishment in 1982, with a clear 58 to 37 percentage points; Weiland only won six counties . In 1998 and 2000 he won re-election with over 70 percent of the vote.

Thune fulfilled his promise not to serve as a member of parliament for more than three terms (two years each), and in 2002 no longer applied for the House of Representatives.

senator

Instead, he was run in the 2002 election to the United States Senate as a Republican candidate for incumbent Democratic Senator Tim Johnson . He lost the extremely narrow Senate election with 524 votes behind and did not count on a recount.

Two years later he ran again in the Senate election in November 2004 , this time against the Democratic Senator Tom Daschle . However, this time he won the election in another tight race. This result was a heavy defeat for the Democratic Party, because Daschle was its parliamentary group leader in the Senate . Such a public official had been voted out of office 52 years earlier. In 2010, the Democrats did not put up any opposing candidates against the popular mandate holder under generally good conditions for the Republicans, so that Thune was re-elected with 100 percent of the votes in the November 2010 election.

Thune was quickly traded for leadership roles within his party after his 2004 victory. In 2006 he was appointed deputy whip (parliamentary group leader) and thus moved up to the extended leadership of the Republicans in the Senate, became Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee in 2009 and has been Republican Conference Chairman since 2012 , the fourth and third highest offices within the Republican Senate leadership.

Since January 2015 Thune has been chairman of the Senate Committee for Trade, Economy and Transport , as which he negotiated several non-partisan compromises. Thune raised two million dollars in donations for the 2016 election to the United States Senate . With almost ten million US dollars in reserve, he was in a good starting position for his own campaign for re-election in November 2016. The Democrats had no obviously suitable candidate; in conversation were the son of former US Senator Tim Johnson, Brendan , and former Congressman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin . In February 2016, the chairman of the Democrats in Yankton County , Jay Williams, was introduced as an opposing candidate, who was regarded as an almost hopeless "ultimate outsider". In the November election, Thune defended his Senate seat against Williams with 71.8 percent of the vote. His mandate runs until January 3, 2023.

After Thune had rejected the offer to become Whip of the majority parliamentary group in 2012 , he moved up to this second most powerful position in the Republican Senate parliamentary group after the 2018 election , as the previous Majority Whip, John Cornyn , resigned at the beginning of 2019 due to term restrictions.

Presidential ambitions

As a classic conservative, Thune was repeatedly traded as a possible presidential candidate for the Republicans who was able to take the wind out of the sails of the right-wing populist tea party movement . After he - publicly supported by the parliamentary group chairman Mitch McConnell - had long flirted with a candidacy in the 2012 presidential election , he canceled in February 2011, apparently because he did not believe he could keep up with the financial networks of the East Coast elites. Thune was also in talks for the 2016 presidential election , but declared in January 2015 that he would not run because he had not seen a favorable opportunity ("opening") for himself; he added that he may have missed his best chance in 2012 and is afraid of being mixed up with the establishment candidates in the perception. Thune had previously made it a point not to be a “creature of Washington”.

Political positions

In right-wing political media like the Weekly Standard , Thune is seen as a possible leader of the Conservatives within the Republican Party. He is praised as a pragmatic, down-to-earth small townsperson who is just as telegenic and gifted in addressing the interests of different groups of voters (“retail politics”) as he is credible as a deeply religious Christian. His temporary work as a lobbyist (after his unsuccessful Senate candidacy in 2002) and his commitment to subsidies are described as disadvantages, which is considered difficult to convey on the republican base - especially since the triumphant advance of the tea party movement in 2010.

Thune is regarded as a generalist with continuously conservative views, for example when it comes to rejecting stronger gun controls. He also supported an amendment to the constitution that would forbid same-sex marriages, a position that is no longer tenable due to a conflicting ruling by the Supreme Court (see Recognition of same-sex partnerships in the United States ). He voted in 2003 for the US invasion of Iraq ( Iraq War ). In terms of energy policy, Thune has contributed to the passing of several laws and is committed - in accordance with the resources of its home country - to a quick switch to renewable energies.

In May 2016, Thune received international media attention when he criticized the practice of selecting news for “Trending Topics” on Facebook Inc. as politically unbalanced. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, he wrote to request an investigation into allegations of manipulation, whereupon Facebook changed the underlying algorithm.

literature

  • Jon K. Lauck: Daschle Vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-Plains Senate Race. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2007, (preview) .

Web links

supporting documents

  1. See Pat Thune (May 13, 1921 - March 7, 2012). In: Isburg Funeral Chapels , March 2012 (obituary for the mother, English); Kevin Woster: Thune Helps Parents, Murdo Church Celebrate Anniversaries. In: Rapid City Journal , June 28, 2008 (English); John Thune Ancestry. In: Rootsweb , accessed on November 5, 2015.
  2. ^ Matt McCue, Runners' Stories: 2012 Election Year Special. In: Runner's World , October 15, 2012 (English).
  3. a b Biography. In: Thune.Senate.gov , accessed November 5, 2015.
  4. ^ About the League. In: SDMunicipalLeague.org , last updated on October 14, 2015.
  5. ^ A b South Dakota: Representative-At-Large. Rep. John Thune (R). ( Memento of October 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Almanac of American Politics 1998 , June 1, 1997, in: National Journal .
  6. SD Dems Skip Senate Race Against GOP's Thune. In: Yankton Daily Press , April 2, 2010; Kelly Bartnick: Thune Weighs In On Election Impact In DC ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Keloland.com , November 7, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.keloland.com
  7. Tom Scheck: Lott picks Coleman as Deputy Minority Whip. In: MPRNews.com , December 6, 2006.
  8. a b c Stephen F. Hayes: Dakota Dreaming. The Presidential Hopes of John Thune. In: The Weekly Standard , October 4, 2010.
  9. ^ A b Burgess Everett: Senate leadership shakeup looms for Republicans. In: Politico , April 10, 2018; Andrea Drusch: Cornyn to move from Senate GOP's No. 2 to 'counselor'. In: McClatchy DC , November 13, 2018.
  10. See Alexis Levinson: Brendan Johnson Discusses His Future in South Dakota (Updated). In: Roll Call , February 18, 2015.
  11. Mark Roper: Democrat Jay Williams announces US Senate run. In: KSFY.com , February 19, 2016.
  12. Stu Whitney: Whitney: South Dakota's Ultimate Cnderdog. In: Argus Leader , USA Today , April 29, 2016.
  13. ^ South Dakota US Senate Results: John Thune Wins. In: The New York Times , November 8, 2017.
  14. Jason Linkins: John Thune: I Won't Run For President In 2012. In: Huffington Post , February 22, 2011, last updated May 25, 2011.
  15. ^ Burgess Everett: Thune: No 'Opening' for a White House Run. In: Politico , January 14, 2015.
  16. Stephen F. Hayes: Dakota Dreaming. The Presidential Hopes of John Thune. ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Weekly Standard , October 4, 2010 (page 3). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.weeklystandard.com
  17. Energy. In: Thune.Senate.gov , accessed November 5, 2015.
  18. Nick Corasaniti, Mike Isaac: Senator Demands Answers From Facebook on Claims of 'Trending' List Bias. In: The New York Times , May 10, 2016 (English); Elle Hunt: Facebook to Change Trending Topics after Investigation into Bias Claims. In: The Guardian , May 24, 2016.