Democratic Senate candidate Rick Weiland rejected the charge that he was "too liberal for South Dakota" in an appearance on MSNBC Thursday, shortly before he turned around and professed his support for Medicare for all.
"That’s a line, I just don’t buy it," Weiland replied when asked by host Chuck Todd whether South Dakotan voters would find him too liberal.
But when Todd asked Weiland what he would change about the President’s troubled health care law, Weiland claimed that the law did not go far enough.
"I support making Medicare available to everyone of any age. People should be able to buy into Medicare," Weiland said, stressing the need for a public option, the longtime liberal goal for healthcare.
President Obama and his health law are already deeply unpopular in South Dakota, a state where Mitt Romney garnered 58 percent of the vote. In 2013, South Dakota had the fourth lowest approval rating of the President at 31.7 percent.
Weiland was an aide to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D., S.D.), President Obama’s original pick for Health and Human Services Secretary and current chairman of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. In 1997, Weiland was appointed by then-president Bill Clinton as a regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This is Weiland's third run for office in South Dakota, having failed to win in 1996 and 2002.