As the onslaught towards Steve Kirby by the SDDP funded website Badlands Blue continues despite the fact he hasn’t announced his candidacy, maybe the real question behind the smear campaign should be why are they dedicating so much time and energy towards him in the first place?

- Why is Virginia based blogger Lowell Feld one minute heralding Johnson’s seemingly insurmountable lead in the polls then ripping someone that can only be labeled a possible challenger the next?

- Why is this SDDP funded blog spending, from my count, 9 posts as of this writing on their front page alone dedicated strictly to ripping one non-challenger while completely ignoring the 3 announced challengers Joel Dykstra, Sam Kephart, and Bert Tollefson?

- Why is there so much venom directed towards Kirby that they have even resorted to ripping local Johnson supporters who question their tactics?

- Why worry about any Republican challenger until after the primary vote determines who the GOP opponent actually will be? I am sure they could find another Tim Johnson or Stephanie Herseth Sandlin press release to post in the interim.

I have no idea why the writers over at Badlands Blue and by extension the SDDP are so afraid of Steve Kirby’s possible run against Tim Johnson but all the attention aimed at Kirby makes one wonder what is going on. Are they starting to see flashbacks to 2004 and Tom Daschle? Maybe so but from what I’ve seen, Steve Kirby has no where near the political resume that John Thune did so again, why are they so afraid?

Maybe we’ll find out Monday after Kirby’s email announcement (does that sound like a serious challenger?) or maybe not…