May 03, 2024 10:14 AM UTC

Puppy-Killing Gov. Kristi Noem Cancels Jeffco GOP Fundraiser

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• by: Colorado Pols

That’s the word this morning in a statement from Jefferson County Republican Party chair Nancy Pallozzi, a fundraiser planned for tomorrow at the Denver West Marriott headlined by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been cancelled as the repercussions from Noem’s disclosure in a new memoir that she personally shot and killed a young hunting dog she deemed “untrainable” continue to, well, repercuss:

Our Saturday, May 4th fundraiser event with Governor Kristi Noem has been cancelled due to safety concerns.

When we received confirmation on April 5th from an invitation we sent to the Governor’s office on January 23rd, we were excited to have her speak at our annual fundraiser. The timing was perfect, as it was just prior to her new book being released. We had no prior knowledge of the contents of the book when we invited her. [Pols emphasis] When I received a phone call from a news reporter Friday afternoon, April 26th, I knew our event was going to be affected by mainstream media coverage. In the past few days, numerous threats and/or death threats that have been made to our organization, the hotel, and to the Governor and her staff.

After a conversation with the Governor’s office late Wednesday, we mutually decided that safety was the most important concern for everyone involved. The Denver West Marriott also received alarming comments and shared with us their deep concern over the safety and security for those attending our event, other guests, and their staff. We understood there was a planned organized protest outside of the hotel, led by Progress Now, a George Soros-funded organization, but when credible threats continued, we had no choice but to cancel.

Our number one concern is safety for all and when extremist organizations such as Progress Now organize a protest, the outcome is never good, and someone always gets hurt. It is very sad that standing up and expressing our First Amendment rights in our current culture means we are going to scream, yell, and hurt others. The last threat received was a nasty voicemail message stating there would be “guns at the protest and people might get hurt.”

As Chair of the Jefferson County Republican Party, I felt that our event would be negatively impacted, and we could not take the risk that those who made threats would not cause physical harm. Please know that the Jefferson County Republican Party is not taking a position on the public outcry on the Governor’s book… [Pols emphasis]

Despite the attempt to blame this cancellation on liberal agitators planning a protest, the truth is that the story of Noem killing her 14-month-old puppy in her new book, disclosure of which was necessary to get out of the way since the incident was apparently well-known in South Dakota political circles, cut across partisan boundaries in its horror and upset a great many Republican dog owners as well as those with a partisan reason to object. No conscientious dog owner, even one who distinguishes between “working dogs” and pets, can justify what she did based on the facts as Noem laid them out. Noem’s attempts over the past week to explain the situation away have not helped her standing.

In short, Jeffco GOP can blame the left all they want, but they know Kristi Noem disgusted dog lovers fromacross the political spectrum. Their defense that they “had no prior knowledge of the contents of the book,” and that they’re “not taking a position on the public outcry,” is their admission they know this is not just a regular partisan kerfluffle.

As for Kristi Noem? We’re pretty sure she’s all done. Like Sen. John Hickenlooper confessing in his memoir to taking his mother to see Deep Throat, the point of these disclosures in memoirs is to get them out of the way so they don’t become political pitfalls later. Noem reportedly had no choice but to address this story given the wide local knowledge of the incident. But unlike Hickenlooper’s somewhat odd but ultimately harmless tale, Kristi Noem confessed to something that while perhaps no longer prosecutable is in every conceivable way career-ending.

The moral of the story? If you want to succeed in American politics, don’t kill puppies.

If this seems like a lesson everyone in politics should already have learned, that’s because it is.