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through 2000 before running for governor in 2002. He was anything but a front-runner for that GOP nomination, raising just a fraction of the millions spent by businessman Steve Kirby of Sioux Falls and then-Attorney General Mark Barnett.
• But as Barnett and Kirby traded shots in attack ads, the self-proclaimed "guy behind door No. 3" crisscrossed the state in a small plane and a Chevy Suburban to win over voters with a positive message. Rounds took the GOP primary with 44 percent of the vote, won in November and held the governor's office for two terms.
• With near-total name recognition and two big statewide wins to his credit, Rounds is the clear frontrunner now, said Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University.
• Schaff said the recent investigation into financial misconduct involving Rounds' former economic development director doesn't appear to have hit too closely to Rounds. Schaff said the main criticism Rounds is likely to face ahead of the June primary is that he overspent during his governorship.
• "Clearly he was not a complete fiscal hawk, and so he's been already attacked by some folks on that," Schaff said.
• Rounds, the oldest of 11 children, said that one of the greatest threats to American families is the nation's new health care law, which he said eliminates competition and will limit innovation. South Dakota once had 17 different companies providing health care insurance, he said, and the state helped guarantee renewability and portability. Under the Affordable Care Act, that number is down to three.
• "American families will make good choices if they know that some companies will provide appropriate service and others will not," Rounds said. "It doesn't take long in the market for the bad apples to be found out."
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• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota officials and a contractor hired six years ago to work on a new computerized Medicaid management system have not been able to resolve differences on the project.
• The state signed a $62 million contract in 2008 with Client Network Service Inc. of Maryland to develop a new computerized system for the program that pays medical expenses for poor people. The state ended the contract in 2010 because of a dispute on the timing and quality of the work, but the state and the company have since agreed to resume the project.
• Yet, the parties haven't agreed on a timeline to finish the project and state officials are now blaming the federal government -- which is financing 90 percent of the new system's cost -- for complicating the project at times.

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