Scott Munsterman's book

Red italics are edits after original post

Brookings Mayor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Munsterman, a chiropractor, has copyrighted a formidable, 178 page book called "A Vision For South Dakota." The book is heavily footnoted (20 of the 178 pages are credits.)

Freelance writer Bob Mercer wrote a particularly gushy piece on the book, which it may well deserve. (One of Mercer's Aberdeen American News columns is quoted in the book.) I haven't had time to read the whole thing yet, but I will.

You can download it at Munsterman's website.

I did a word search for issues I thought would be important to folks out here on the lone prairieee. There is much discussion of economic development in Munsterman's book.

The state's second-largest industry – "tourism" – appears on 13 of the document's 158 pages. The words "Black Hills" appear together twice; once in a short reference to the gold rush and the "pioneer days of speculation," and in a table containing "Black Hills" State University.

The word Sturgis, not only the state's largest tourism event, but the world's largest annually recurring tourism event, does not appear in Mr. Munsterman's Vision for the South Dakota. The words West River do not appear together. Lexrex makes a good point so I checked, East River doesn't appear either.

The word "ranch" or any derivitive thereof, appears a total of six time. The word "farm" and its derivatives appears 34 times. The word "timber" is completely absent. Forest and its derivatives appear on three pages.

The word "Sioux" (when not followed by "Falls") appears eleven times on just two pages. The words "Native American" appear 41 times on 8 of the 158 pages that aren't devoted to credits. The word "Indian" appears 15 times, five of them preceded by Flandreau.

The word "Rushmore" does not appear in the document. Corn appears 18 times.

These are just interesting numbers. It's early in the campaign. I'll go poking around the other candidates' literature and websites to see what I find there. I probably won't be able to do a similar comparison because none of the other candidates have compiled such an impressive 158-page document that ignores West River voters.