GOULD: The NDGOP 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.

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Tessa Gould

Executive Director at One Country Project

Tessa Gould has nearly three decades of campaign, communications and policy experience, much of that time spent focused on the Dakotas. She has served on the staff of two U.S. Senators, four Members of Congress and has managed eight campaigns in fly over country.Gould has been named one of the top “500 influencers in American Politics” and a “Top Influencer by State” for several years running by Campaigns and Elections Magazine. We took a staff vote and decided she was qualified to write for NDxPlains. Gould grew up in Jamestown, played sports, did lots of fun stuff and attended college there. That’s where her love of the color orange began. She currently serves as Executive Director of the One Country Project and is a partner at a Washington DC based lobbying and public affairs firm. She spends time with her English bulldog, Sully, in DC, ND, MN and hockey rinks and baseball stadiums around the country.