Can this Democratic rodeo legend become South Dakota's next governor?

Welcome to the most inspiring governor's race in America

Billie Sutton.
(Image credit: Illustrated | AP Photo/James Nord, File, Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

In 1979, the black-footed ferret was declared extinct. Then a woman named Lucille Hogg discovered a handful of the little critters — popularly known as prairie dog hunters, on account of their primary food source — sitting on her doorstep, carried from goodness knows where by her dog. Since then they have been bred successfully both in captivity and in the wild, most notably in South Dakota, where they nevertheless remain a federally designated endangered species.

Democrats in the Mount Rushmore State are faring somewhat worse than America's only indigenous species of ferret.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.