When President Obama finally does visit South Dakota - the only state he hasn’t visited while President - do me a favor: Don’t be a jerk to him.

My Cousin Barry, as I like to call him (his mother used to live in Augusta, Kansas, where I graduated from high school, so, it is like we’re almost related), just visited fellow red state Utah Thursday. He even met with Mormon leaders!

Yet the Beehive State still stands.

I know many of you not only dislike the president, you hate him. I’m guessing that’s because he’s black, smart, handsome and powerful. And, he campaigned that he was radically going to change things.

Alas, my Cousin Barry did not.

Sure, we got Obamacare, but it is a far, far cry from what we should have gotten - and what most Western countries have - comprehensive single payer health insurance coverage. Instead, we got the Insurance Company Full Employment Act and a derpy website that didn’t work very well. Millions more people are covered; millions more still aren’t, including tens of thousands of our own fellow South Dakotans.

And despite my cousin’s call for income equality, the rich have never done better in this country. What he’s done for Wall Street compared to either President named Bush makes them look like pikers. The rich have gotten a lot richer while the rest of us struggle to make ends meet.

And Cousin Barry has been to South Dakota. It was early June 2008 before the primary and I was there, in both Sioux Falls and Mitchell. He reduced my wife Donna to tears in how he was able to talk to a little girl at her level about bringing her daddy - a South Dakota National Guardsmen - home from Iraq.

And he did. Iraq is a mess, but it’s been a mess and always will be a mess. I know. I lived there for a year and a half. No one understands the place. It ain't Cousin Barry's fault the place is a dumpster fire.

The president has presence. The guy has a tremendous intellect. He hasn’t been the best President we’ve ever had but he isn’t the worst either.

So, when my Cousin Barry finally does make it to the Mount Rushmore State, I suggest you, me, my wife Donna, my kids Sarah and Matt, my dad Rodney, Rick Knobe, Chad McKenzie, Dan Peters and a few of the rest of you who can behave in public treat President Obama to some of Bob’s Carry Out and Delivery broasted chicken, thick-cut french fries and coleslaw. We’ll sit along the counter here in Sioux Falls having one of those full, frank and fun political discussions that the eatery is known for.

So, don’t be a jerk, OK?

Welcome the president with open arms to our state and city and show him the hospitality I know you’re capable of showing. That’s how we roll in the Upper Midwest, you betcha! It may be our only chance to see a sitting President for a long, long time.

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