JOSEPH BOTTUM: Oba-‘meh’ heads to South Dakota: Don’t expect Midwesterners to get giddy over being a box to check. “To be fair, if Obama hasn’t much appreciated the state, the state hasn’t much appreciated him. Gallup polling showed him with only a 32.2% average approval rating for the entire year of 2014 — an unpopularity echoed in the thumping of his party in November’s local elections, leaving not a single Democrat as a statewide officeholder and the Republicans with an 84-20 advantage in the legislature. Nothing Obama does or says in Watertown is likely to bring the conservative population over to his liberal politics. Even among the state’s Democrats, most future office-seekers seem to be finding excuses not to be seen (and photographed) with him.”