From Mr. Barton:

At the request of the assistant state's attorney, Michele Bennett, I spent six hours driving to and from Huron and meeting with her. It appeared to be a waste of time, as she tried to again persuade me to plead guilty or "nolo contendre" (no contest), with the "promise" of being allowed to make a statement at my sentencing. I stated to her repeatedly that I did not violate any law, and that I would not plead either guilty or no contest (which is essentially no different from guilty, in my opinion).

My attorney has again filed a motion to dismiss, based on my rights of free speech; it appears that Ms. Bennett and her superior(s) wish to claim that my speaking out interfered with the rights of the people at the forum to hear the two candidates that were present (of the three on the ballot). What an odd twist of logic.

In another odd twist, Mr. Patrick Callahan, the moderator from Dakota News Network, contacted me and interviewed me by phone for his radio network in response to a press release issued by my campaign to all media outlets. During the interview, as recorded (although I have not heard what actually made it on the air), he did not mention our first "interview" at the State Fair once; apparently, since he has followed up on a press release and asked for (and gotten) a press release, we Libertarian candidates are now "newsworthy." By the way, Mr. Callahan apparently has served in the past as a police officer or reserve police officer.

On the campaign side, I did receive statewide news coverage from that press release, which detailed my proposals for "recreating" state government, and I was included in news stories about the candidates' forum broadcast on state Public Radio and TV yesterday, which featured all four candidates for governor. We four candidates actually met twice yesterday, once at Vermillion on the University of South Dakota campus for the PBS forum, and then in the evening for a second forum at North Sioux City. The first was jointly sponsored by the two largest dailies of the state (Sioux Falls Argus Leader and Rapid City Journal) as well as SD Public Broadcasting; the second by the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce "49er's Club" and KMAG-TV, Sioux City. Mike Rounds, the GOP candidate, both publicly and privately stated that he believed ALL candidates should be included in ALL forums, because more gets done that way.

If people would take a few minutes to encourage other South Dakota Libertarian candidates, and urge them to keep fighting for freedom, I'd appreciate it. They include:

(1) Terry Begay, US Representative, terrybegay@dtgnet.com
(2) Kurt Evans, US Senator, kurtevans@hotmail.com
(3) Bob Newland, Attorney General, newland@rapidcity.com
(4) Alex Martin, Sec of State, amartin@valyou.net
(5) Bill Stone, Commissioner of School and Public Lands, wrstone@wrstone.com

Please send just a quick "Attaboy" message to each of them, if you can, right now, to tell them how much we appreciate their efforts for liberty. It can really help, and doesn't cost more than a minute or two.

By the way, Ms. Bennett had a big stack of e-mails and copies of some on-line publication called Samizdat or some "communist" name like that, which had the gall to refer to one of the security guards as a "Jack-booted thug", and she is very upset over that "award" and the e-mails sent to the man and his department, as well as a resolution of support from the Yankton (SD) Area Libertarians, which was even notarized. She showed them off to me and stated that politics did not matter to her, because she was only interested in enforcing the law. She tried to blame me for the correspondence, or at least seemed to imply that I was responsible for it.

I appreciate everyone's encouragement and help!

Nathan