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“RICK BECKER WOULD OPEN THE DOOR FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND MORE CRIME,” proclaims an eight-by-twelve-inch card that arrived in my mailbox last week. Of course, it’s all bullpuckey. I certainly have no special love for Rick Becker, but I suspected a hatchet job propped up on half truths, and a quick look into the details confirmed my suspicions.
Which candidate launched this attack, you ask? The disclaimer says, “Paid for by Brighter Future Alliance—(url)—and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.” Also, a bunch of bull—. Plausible deniability bull— a big stinking pile of no-I-don’t-take-responsibility-at-all manure spread over the North Dakota prairie. It’s the kind of thing that makes people cynical about politics and government.
I suspect this ad came from those big-money elites who believe North Dakota’s lone U.S. House seat belongs to them. In recent years, we North Dakotans have seen their elitist inbreeding manifest itself in stunted ethical development and oozing sores of legislative and executive corruption. I also suspect these wealthy players have a candidate in mind who they know will belong to them after the election.
How is an ad attacking one candidate not an in-kind contribution to an opposing candidate? The law says it’s not, but reality begs to differ. If reality prevailed, if common-sense ethics applied, spending on such ads by an independent expenditure filer (Super PAC) or any other entity would be subject to federal campaign contribution limits. It is not. If you’re looking for a swamp to drain in American politics, this is it.
Unlike actual swamps, this one provides no benefit to its environment. It produces pollutants instead of filtering them. It drives our political and cultural discourse down to the murky bottoms of internet trolls and conspiracy theorists.
When it comes to primary spending, North Dakota’s House race is estimated to hover just south of the $3 million mark. To put that figure in perspective, it’s akin to shelling out $90 million in a California primary. Put another way, if you managed to put $1000 a month toward a future run for political office, you would be ready to play in North Dakota’s Republican primary in a mere 250 years.
Less than one-third of that primary spending comes directly from candidate coffers. The remainder? Well, it’s raining money from outside PACs, who seem to believe they’ve found a clearance sale on political influence in our small prairie state.
Oh, yes, it’s business as usual in the electioneering bazaar of our times, but dare we dream of better? Trace the money and behold the usual suspects: investment banking bigwigs, oil tycoons, and their sunny friends in the Cayman Islands.
Peek under the hood and it’s all laid bare—North Dakota’s number one and two industries, energy and agriculture, are up for grabs. These folks aren’t just here to sightsee; they’re in it to buy the power to do what they want when they want, damn the torpedoes and the local folks.
Imagine a North Dakota where the economic benefits of our vast resources don’t just evaporate into the plush pockets of distant tycoons but actually prop up the people they tower over. Upholding the robustness of our industries while ensuring the fruits of this labor enrich the hardworking people who make these industries possible isn’t just a handshake deal over coffee.
Negotiating fair agreements between landowners and large corporations or between farmers and big agricultural firms is crucial. They shouldn’t be bought or treated as mere formalities. It’s the hard, honest work of genuine leadership committed to the welfare of all parties involved.
But it’s difficult to imagine that whoever triumphs in North Dakota’s GOP Congressional primary will be up for that task. Respectively, the GOP leading contenders — Julie Fedorchak and Rick Becker — have small-dollar donations hovering around 3% and 2% of their total campaign fundraising. They’ve been paid for before the general even gets underway.
Bankrolling your campaign mostly with mega-donor dollars and Super PACs is the path of least resistance. If either Fedorchak or Becker succeeds and election season rolls back around, the re-up on fundraising will be a breeze. They’ll have been neatly tucked into the back pocket of industry tycoons while their bank accounts swell with PAC cash. It’s a bad deal for North Dakotans. We’re left holding the bag while they run off with our future.
Americans are not clamoring for less transparency, and we North Dakotans know that our state’s U.S. House seat belongs to us, not to the monied interests behind any particular candidate or even to the person occupying that seat at any particular time. The DISCLOSE Act would be a good start for real transparency, but we can’t get there until we elect enough people who want to shine a light into the dark corners of campaign finance.
Of course, our state’s politics can be a tale of the people, by the people, and for the people, not a footnote in some tycoon’s travelog. This election is our opportunity to decide.
As the primary this Tuesday, June 11th, draws near, I urge you to check out “Officers Eat Last [ [link removed] ]” – a video that truly captures what this campaign, and my candidacy, are all about. If it strikes a chord, please share it. And with a real chance to flip this seat from red to blue, every donation can make a monumental difference. Together, we can ensure this race is won by the people, for the people.
Support our grassroots campaign against the independently wealthy and super PAC-backed giants.
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