"The Next Sarah Palin"? Before We Go THAT Far, Can We See Her in a Tight T-Shirt, Please?

She's republican Kristi Noem and she's running for Congress in South Dakota as she looks to unseat incumbent democrat Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin. And some of the similarities to Palin are rather striking: Attractive, late 30's; mother of three; rancher; "avid hunter known to hunt elk with a bow and arrow"; highly successful fundraiser; and staunchly conservative (what else?).

But Noem reportedly "wants no part" of being compared to Palin and has "balked" at the idea of Palin campaigning for her in South Dakota. (As a result, I wonder if Todd Palin will be firing off some nasty e-mails at Noem referring to Sarah's "ass" like he was doing last week to Joe Miller?)

And while this may be the thinly populated and fairly conservative state of South Dakota, it's additionally striking how much Noem's congressional race looks like most of the other ones nationwide. For example, incumbent opponent Herseth-Sandlin is out there (like so many dems right now) disingenuously trying to hide from voters what she really is through claims of being "independent" and boasts of voting against her own party and with the republicans (while Noem claims that Herseth-Sandlin actually voted with Nancy Pelosi 90% of the time).

Another similarity is the democrat party's 2010 tactic of focusing almost exclusively upon any bit of dirt that can be dredged from the candidate's past so that there need not be word one spoken as to the democrat party's awful and destructive policies and legislative agenda of the past two years. Herseth-Sandlin seems to be taking this tactic to the extreme, running ads that attempt to take Noem to task for past speeding tickets, of all things! Hell, I think all the tickets are cool. Gal likes her speed! Lady likes it fast!

Maybe next, the democrat party can expend resources trying to uncover whether Noem has ever let her dog run around in public without any tags? And I bet there are some long, lost parking tickets in this woman's closet! And I imagine that someone's surely heard her use curse words a time or two as well!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elections-2010-south-dakota-sarah-palin/story?id=11860378