Can Noem recover from her self-inflicted wound? Nixon and Clinton offer lessons in resurrecting a damaged career
Kristi Noem wanted to be famous in the worst possible way.
Mission accomplished!
South Dakota’s ambitious governor has been promoting herself — and, when it’s convenient, the state, for several years. But as you may have heard, her self-promotional ways backfired in an explosive fashion.
Noem has never been more famous. But it’s not the kind of fame she was seeking.
Her book “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” contained the gruesome tale of how Noem, in a foul mood after Cricket, a 14-month-old puppy spoiled a pheasant hunt for some clients of her family business, shot the dog. Then, spotting a smelly, disagreeable goat her family owned, she dispatched it as well.
Once the incredible story was shared, the outcry was immediate. Liberals, conservatives, the media — Noem was assailed on all sides. A book tour was ended prematurely when she found that every media outlet — including conservative ones that had coddled her for years — wanted answers.
Why did she shoot the animals? And why in the hell did she write about it? Noem went silent.
The speculation is, she wanted to impress former President Donald J. Trump, who is known to dislike dogs and often compares people he is battling with to canines. While killing a puppy and boasting about it seems like something a wicked cartoon figure would do, as we have learned in the last decade, Trump is not a normal, rational man.
Michelle Goldberg wrote a column for The New York Times about the curious pattern of Trump acolytes bragging about doing horrible things. Noem was the central figure in the opinion piece, which noted she has changed her appearance and done all she can to catch Trump’s eye.
Bragging about killing a frolicsome puppy and a goat that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time is apparently something that makes him smile.
“The story’s inclusion makes more sense when you think about the kind of humans she’s trying to impress,” Goldberg wrote. “The ex-president and the people who surround him often seem drawn to violence and lurid displays of dominance. Trump, of course, makes no secret either of his contempt for dogs or his admiration for brutal dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, whom Noem falsely claimed to have met.”
Right now, Noem is both a national joke and a figure of scorn and derision. She is seen as a vicious, cold-hearted person who killed animals because she was in a bad mood, and was so tone-deaf, she bragged about it!
One of the more amazing notes in this entire self-inflicted disaster is the news that Noem tried to tell the puppy and goat story in her first book, “Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland.” But the editors at Twelve, described as Hachette Book Group’s prestige imprint, had the sense to delete it.
The new book, published by Center Street, a right-wing firm, was not so thoughtfully edited. Noem’s callous nature and lack of understanding the truly offensive nature of this story was exposed.
As I was told by a South Dakota Republican insider, Noem has been telling this story in Pierre and around the state for years. She has been advised to stop, that it made her look very bad, but she just didn’t get it.
And now she is a figure of ridicule. The very mention of her name elicits laughter and eye-rolls.
Comedians have had a field day with Noem, from HBO’s Bill Maher to the late-night hosts to “Saturday Night Live.” Maher has poked fun at her three weeks in a row, although he referred to Noem as the governor of North Dakota — it’s one of those rectangle-shaped states somewhere in the middle of the country, he figures — in a Kentucky Derby joke on May 3.
“The winning horse will make $3.1 million and the losers will be shot by Kristi Noem,” he said.
Noem was still a target on his May 10 show, as he noted that for Mother’s Day, her kids bought her a pair of shoes from “her favorite brand, Hush Puppies.”
This has been, without a doubt, the worst book rollout in history. Noem hoped Trump would be impressed and she would be at his side when he ran for president this fall. Instead, she has become a pariah, hiding from the South Dakota media. Her name is forever linked to shooting a puppy.
It’s not exactly the image a person seeking national office wants.
Her reference to a supposed meeting with North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un in the book also raised eyebrows and doubts, as did a story about turning down a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and one about squabbling with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Noem aimed at dogs, goats and politicians, but she was the one who ended up looking like Daffy Duck in a Loony Tunes cartoon.
That doesn’t mean she can’t work her way out of this. But it will not be easy.
Bill Clinton was mocked after his seemingly endless speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Just saying his name had people thinking of a small-state politician who didn’t know when to get off the stage.
“He droned on and on, and droned on,” NBC News anchor and South Dakota native Tom Brokaw recalled. “When he finally said ‘In conclusion,’ people began to cheer.”
In the wake of the public ridicule, Clinton appeared on “The Tonight Show” in an attempt to apologize for his wordiness, and TV icon Johnny Carson drew gales of laughter by placing an hourglass on his desk. But Clinton laughed, too, and accepted the fact that he messed up. He charmed Carson, who praised his sense of humor, played a saxophone and began climbing out of the hole he had dug for himself.
Clinton focused on his work as governor of Arkansas and continued to work to make himself a viable candidate in the future. In 1992, Clinton was elected president.
He still talks too long — I covered a speech in Rapid City in 2008 when he appeared to be wrapping it up four or five times — but he was not defined by his gaffe. There were other mistakes in his future, of course, but many triumphs as well.
Other national figures have been able to escape from a self-inflicted wound. Richard Nixon (seen above in a public domain image posted on wikimedia commons) was mocked for his “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” comment after losing a race for governor of California in 1962.
He said that was his “last press conference,” but he was just angry and bitter.
Nixon kept working, kept making allies in Republican circles around the country, kept raising money and making plans.
Six years later, he was elected president.
That doesn’t mean Noem will emerge from this easily, or that she will — God forbid — be elected president. Nixon and Clinton were rare figures, very different men but highly intelligent and respected for their political skills.
That’s not the image Noem, who is best known for riding horses, touring the country making speeches and battling her political foes and the media, has created for herself. This has been a tremendously foolish move, and it has created a lot of doubt about her ability to understand that.
If she wants to reinvent herself and change the narrative, she needs to display a sense of humor — that seems highly unlikely — and apologize for her tremendous lack of judgment. That would be a major reversal for her, and it wouldn’t fit in with her Trumpish style of always attacking and never backing down.
Noem has two and a half more years left in her second term as governor. She needs to change the narrative and try to persuade people to move past this story.
Can she do it? Her political future is at stake, so you know Noem will try as hard as possible to do just that. Next time she writes a book, she needs to listen to an editor who warns her off such stories.
Of course, there might not be a next time. Would you buy a book from a puppy-killer?
Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Reprint with permission.
