Editor's note: This commentary was written by Dana Hess of South Dakota Searchlight, an online news organization.

Recent testimony cast a harsh light on how the bid was awarded for the Freedom Works Here marketing campaign. It seems that awarding the bid for the project had more to do with political expediency than it did with talent. Where that talent was missing, the winning bidder reportedly got to steal an idea from one of the other bidders.

The Freedom Works Here campaign, with at least $6.5 million invested so far, features Gov. Kristi Noem in television and online commercials in the role of skilled workers that are needed in South Dakota. Noem and officials from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development claim Freedom Works Here is the most successful workforce development campaign the state has ever had. It’s just hard to know who to give credit to for that success.

At a hearing conducted by the Legislature’s Executive Board, former GOED Marketing Director Nate Welch said the fix was in to choose a politically connected company from Ohio to run the campaign. “It was pretty obvious that was who we would be selecting at the end of this,” Welch said, according to a South Dakota Searchlight story.

The favored firm was Go West Media, a subsidiary of The Strategy Group. The Strategy Group’s CEO, Ben Yoho, managed Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Given Ramaswamy’s demeanor on the debate stage and standing in the polls, that’s not something Yoho is likely to include on his resume.

The Executive Board received plenty of information about the Freedom Works Here campaign behind closed doors to protect confidential information. In open session, in addition to Welch saying that the selection of a particular marketing firm was predetermined, lawmakers expressed their dismay that the idea for featuring Noem in a variety of jobs was stolen from the bid offered by Lawrence & Schiller of Sioux Falls.

“There isn’t anybody with two eyes and a functioning brain that would say Lawrence & Schiller’s idea wasn’t stolen,” said Board Vice Chairman Lee Schoenbeck, a Republican senator from Watertown.

The winning Go West bid was light on creative ideas and analytics, according to Welch. Sioux Falls Live was the first to report that the Go West-produced commercials featuring Noem were a match for the storyboards that were included in Lawrence & Schiller’s bid.

While what they heard behind closed doors and in open session obviously bothered board members, they decided that no laws were broken and there was nothing that they could do. While everyone involved may want to move on from this unfortunate incident, here are a couple of suggestions for what’s needed:

First off, a public apology to Lawrence & Schiller is in order. Since that company’s ideas reportedly fueled what Noem claims is the greatest workforce marketing campaign in the state’s history, perhaps that firm should be cut in on some of the millions of dollars that have been invested so far.

Second, someone — either GOED or the governor — needs to acknowledge that this is not the way we should be doing business in South Dakota. The bidding process, especially for projects sponsored by state government, should be transparent. Projects should be awarded on the strength of the bid. Period.

It’s ironic that all of this springs from a campaign called Freedom Works Here. With that freedom should come the expectation of professional standards and fair treatment. Freedom Works Here has failed in both of those areas.

Noem likes the phrase Freedom Works Here so much that she made it the theme of her State of the State address. She noted that South Dakotans will “remind the rest of the country the value of hard work and the dignity it brings.” It’s probably best not to speculate on how much dignity Lawrence & Schiller and the other bidders on the marketing project are feeling right now.

Maybe freedom does work here. But from the way this marketing campaign started, it looks like it’s cronyism that prospers.