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• The late, great Republican Gov. Bill Janklow, after losing his primary smash-up against U.S. Sen. Jim Abdnor, used to boast with an asterisk that he'd never lost an election in which Democrats could vote.
• South Dakota's Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson, who announced this week that he will retire in 2014 instead of seeking re-election, did even better at pulling from the opposite party. He never lost an election at all during his political career, despite serving one of the nation's most conservative states - a feat that surely required a healthy dose of support every election cycle from South Dakota Republicans.
• Some here in Pierre may have come to know Johnson first during his years in the Legislature. He served two terms in the state House of Representatives starting in 1978 and two terms in the state Senate starting in 1982.
• He easily walked away with his first congressional election victory in 1986, though the real contest in that year, with a farm crisis in progress, was the tough primary against Jim Burg of Wessington Springs.
• Some of his contests were closer in the years that followed, but Johnson always had more votes than his opponent every time his name was on the ballot - even though he may not always have voted the way some of his more conservative backers would have liked him to.
• We didn't always agree with him here at the Capital Journal, but we have always (Continued on page 29)
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