Meet Jeff Barth, State Chess Champion And South Dakota House Candidate

Jeff Barth has ridden an ostrich and he’s aiming for South Dakota’s House seat.

Video available at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ST2K4U_XQ5Y.

Jeff Barth, the commissioner of Minnehaha County, is running in the Democratic primary to challenge Republican Kristi Noem for South Dakota’s at-large congressional House seat. In one of the more freewheeling campaign ads of this cycle, Barth walks toward the camera through a forest to the tune of fiddle music, passing a series of props (including a mannequin that represents Noem) and outlining his qualifications. They include:

- “My dad was a coach and a history teacher. He got a job with the CIA and became a diplomat for the U.S. government.” Countries lived in: Iceland, Germany, Belgium, and “even Lesotho.”

- “I lived in Germany before they built the Berlin Wall. I lived in Germany when they built the Berlin Wall.”

- “I learned chess in Iceland.” (He was also the state chess champion in 1993.)

- Barth bicycled through Great Britain, “afraid of nuclear war the whole time.”

- “I’ve ridden an ostrich. I’ve done a lot of stuff.”

- Barth notes that his daughters have straight teeth and husbands.