​Silly season is here

Our opinion/ Polls, campaign finance hypocrisy & races you should really care about on our minds as Election Day approaches

Election season, or silly season, is officially in high gear with only a few weeks remaining until Election Day. By now you either may be getting tired of the ads and back and forth between the campaigns or just starting to get engaged. With things picking up, we thought we’d share our thoughts on a few of the bigger political stories in our region as of late.

The big news lately has been coming from a bevy of polls released by the Fargo Forum on statewide races showing leads for what many thought would be hotly contested races, including Measure 1 (the “life begins at conception” amendment) and the battles for US House between Congressman Kevin Cramer and George Sinner and Ag Commissioner between Doug Goehring and Ryan Taylor. But before you declare many of these races over (casual glances at social media saw many supporters of the ones on the losing sides of these polls doing just that), it’s important to remember history.

The history of accuracy from polls emanating from the Fargo Forum isn’t exactly stellar. One only needs to look to last major election in North Dakota in 2012 when the Forum released a poll for the race between Rick Berg and Heidi Heitkamp a couple weeks out that showed a 10 point lead for Rick Berg only to have him lose by 1 point.

A gap that large normally is pretty hard to overcome in a political race, so when the final outcome came in, many pointed to how that poll was severely flawed. Some have even wondered if the Forum is trying to influence the outcome of races matching its editorial views with the results of these polls.

It’s important to take these polls with a grain of salt. They are a snapshot in time and a few weeks until Election Day is an eternity in politics, anything can happen between now and then. Why even hold Election Day if you are going to throw your hands up every time a poll shows a result which makes you raise your eyebrows? Use it as motivation, get even more involved if you are passionate about an issue, measure or candidate. There is plenty of time to affect the results.

There hasn’t been many other polls to compare results to the Forum’s, although some media outlets have said there will be some forthcoming. The Mellman group has shown a much closer race between Kevin Cramer and George Sinner this time around and they were the only firm to correctly predict the outcome of the Berg-Heitkamp Senate race. So 1) don’t believe the hype because there’s a good chance it’s inaccurate; and 2) if you are so worried about it, use the time you have to get involved.

Something else we find interesting is all the howls from conservatives about money spent from Planned Parenthood on Measure 1 and Ducks Unlimited on Measure 5. Of course many of these same conservatives support efforts to appeal campaign finance laws so there is less regulation of money spent in politics. Some of them would be happy if there were no limits on money spent. After all, they say it’s free speech -- except when it comes to something they support. They frequently mention in ominous voices in advertising out of state interests trying to influence North Dakota elections as if their side doesn’t accept out of state money as well.

Various social conservative groups from Washington, DC, including the National Right to Life Committee, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council were very instrumental in getting Measure 1 on the ballot. And no doubt those groups and their supporters are contributing to the campaign. The Greater ND Chamber of Commerce has been very involved in opposition to Measure 5 (the conservation measure). Are we supposed to believe that the US Chamber of Commerce and other out of state business interests are not contributing to their campaign? Of course what they may say in response is they are upset at the amounts Planned Parenthood and Ducks Unlimited are spending in the races for Measure 1 and 5. But if we are to take them at their word on their views on ending restrictions on campaign finance laws (did they support Citizens United Supreme Court case for instance), they should support anyone spending as much money as they want on political campaigns. And we hope the same barking on out of state spending will be also be directed just as equally by conservatives towards Wal-Mart, which is spending tons of dollars contributing to the efforts to change pharmacy ownership laws in North Dakota for Measure 7.

One final point is there is a lot of focus on statewide races, understandably, but it’s important to remember you can sometimes affect the most change in your local Legislative districts. Some of these measures and a lot of laws many have been upset about lately came directly from the North Dakota Legislature. Take the time to study who represents you in your district and how they voted in the last Legislative session. Are they correctly representing you? It may take a little more time because their races aren’t as high profile but a little work can have more of an impact in your community and across the state if more of you actually pay attention to how some of these Legislators are voting and the bills they are coming up with.