Tim Johnson for South Dakota | News | Latest News | Meeting With Senator Johnson Provides Answers About Condition

In the past few weeks, it seems that every newspaper, Web logger and voter in general has formed an opinion about Sen. Tim Johnson's decision not to debate this election year.

Johnson supporters, staffers and the senator himself are saying his speech has not returned enough since his December 2006 brain injury for him to effectively debate an opponent in a race.

Johnson opponents are painting a portrait of a senior senator who believes he already has the race wrapped up, and therefore the debates are just a formality. They are also saying he isn’t capable of cognitive thought processes, so he wouldn’t be able to debate if he tried.

We met with Sen. Johnson last week in Pierre when he was in the middle of his 19-city tour to talk with constituents across the state.

Of course, the Capital Journal publisher, managing editor and state government reporter are not experts on the issue, but we can speak to what we witnessed during that discussion.

The senator is not suffering from any apparent cognitive thinking impairments. He had obviously prepared some responses to some of our questions, just as any politician would do before an interview. Being prepared to discuss the issues is a common practice for most interviewees, political or not.

But our discussions with the senator did not stop with the topics he knew we would ask him about. We also talked about our publisher’s home town — Minot, N.D., — and Johnson’s connection to the congressional delegation representing that state. He shared his memories of some former senators and representatives and talked about the small city, comparing it to Pierre.

We talked about the support the senator has received from other Democrats in Congress.

And he shared with us his frustration and embarrassment over his speech problems.

The senator said he had hoped his speech would recover at a faster pace, judging by his rate of recovery up to the point he decided to run for senate again. And though his speech is not to the point he wants it to be at this point, he believes he is the right candidate for the job.

According to Johnson, most of his accomplishments have been made in committee work and behind the scenes, far from the Senate floor, where his debate skills would be needed.

Sen. Johnson emphasized that this year has been his most successful year ever in the U.S. Senate, and he is working for South Dakotans in the same capacity he was before his injury.

We are not endorsing the incumbent senator, or any candidate, at this time. But we did want to share with our readers our open and frank discussion with the man who so many people have questions about.