GOULD: THE NGDOP WAY... YOU GOTTA PAY FOR DEMOCRACY
In her first video sit down interview with North Dakota media last week, U.S. House candidate Cara Mund made a lot of news. Naturally, hearing her motivation to enter the race, her positions on the issues, and why her background and experiences qualify her to serve the people of North Dakota will get her ink.
But something she said in that interview, which hasn’t gotten much play, quickly captured my attention. Frankly, it made me gasp, rewind the file and listen again. I almost couldn’t believe that I had, indeed heard it right the first time. As a person who has managed and been involved in campaigns in North Dakota for 30 years, I truly had never heard this nugget of detail about the internal process of the NDGOP which simply boils down to this: you pay to play AND you sit and think (for 6 years) about how naughty you were before you can come back on the field. I can only assume that 6 year “time-out” happens in a corner on a very small, hard, wooden chair.
Let’s break this down:
Pay to Play: $5,000 to get the party endorsement. Party of the people? Well, only if that person has $5,000 to run for office is what they mean. Parties have to raise money to operate – we all understand that. But raising money off people interested in running for an endorsement disqualifies those without the financial means to even be considered. This flies in the face of what democracy is defined as and truly is disgusting.
Sit in your Sin: Six year cooling off period if you run under any other party label. According to Mund’s interview, if you dare to run under any other party label, the NDGOP will not allow you to be considered for an endorsement under NDGOP rules for 6 years. We are not just talking about running as a democrat and turning into a republican. This means as a libertarian, bastiat, green, or any other moniker – you think about what you did for 6 years and hope the higher ups of the party will forgive you for making such a bad decision and allow you back into the club.
I’m sorry, what year is this? What is the total control and total sync that the NDGOP insists it must have on their candidates? Free thought, different ideas – WHOA — scary stuff for the NDGOP apparently.
You gotta pay for democracy…that’s the NDGOP way.