North Dakota’s district political conventions are about over, and state conventions are coming up, so I thought I might write a few political columns for the next few weeks.
I’ve been hanging out around politics for a few years, and still have a pretty good memory (something my wife would dispute), and I still know a lot of the players on North Dakota’s political scene, so I’m not afraid to do a little speculating and fun-poking.
In just a few days, political parties need to file endorsed candidates for the Legislature with the secretary of state. I live in Bismarck’s District 35. My state senator, Erin Oban, is the only Democrat in the Legislature from Bismarck. But she’s a good one, and Republicans have been having a hard time finding someone to run against her.
Recently, we learned that a fellow named Gary Emineth might be her opponent. You might remember Gary. He’s the guy who called President Obama a POS on his Facebook page, something that CNN picked up on. CNN reported that POS stands for Piece Of Shit. Gary replied that in his world (he’s a businessman) POS means “Point Of Sale,” but that didn’t matter because he really meant to say President Obama was a POTUS (President Of The United States), but he typed it wrong. Uh huh.
Gary’s kind of a political hanger-on who once ran for the Legislature and lost, back in 1984, and served as chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party a few years ago. He’s a nice fellow, but he’s getting a little long in the tooth, and he figured if he’s ever going to have a real political career, it better start this year.
Last summer, our current çongressman, Kevin Cramer, told Gary he was not going to run for the U.S. Senate against Heidi Heitkamp. Gary mulled that over for six months or so. By early this year, it appeared that the only semicredible candidate the Republicans could get to run against Heidi was this banker from Grafton, Tom Campbell, and he just didn’t seem to be the one who could knock off Heidi.
So late in January of this year, Gary made a decision. He’s been in the news quite a lot since then.
And just by chance, this week I came across a series of memos that I am pretty sure I was not supposed to see (no, neither Wikileaks, nor the Clinton campaign, nor the Russians are involved — at least I don’t think so), but they are interesting, so I will share them with you.
DATE: January 31, 2018
FROM: Gary Emineth
TO: North Dakota Republican Party
SUBJECT: My candidacy
Fellow Republicans: I would like members of our party to know that I will be seeking our party’s endorsement for the United States Senate to run against that POS Tom Campbell at our state convention, and if I win there, to run against that POS Heidi Heitkamp in November. I feel I’d be one of the best candidates. I hope I can have your support
* * *
DATE: February 18, 2018
FROM: Gary Emineth
TO: North Dakota Republican Party
SUBJECT: My candidacy
Fellow Republicans: I dropped out of the race for the U.S. Senate when that POS Kevin Cramer decided to run against Heidi, even though he told me he was not going to do that. I thought strongly about running for Kevin’s seat, and was just about to announce my candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, when that POS Tom Campbell decided he was going to run for that, and then that POS Kelly Armstrong, the oil guy from Dickinson, also got in, so I am not going to do that. Thanks for thinking about me. If I ever decide to run for something, I hope I can have your support.
* * *
DATE: March 6, 2018
FROM: Gary Emineth
TO: North Dakota Republican Party
SUBJECT: My candidacy
Fellow Republicans: I have decided I want to run for the State Senate from my home district, District 35, here in Bismarck. I wasn’t going to do this, but I learned recently that if I don’t do it, that POS Margaret Sitte is likely to run, and we sure don’t want that to happen. But we need a candidate to run against that POS Erin Oban. So I hope I can have your support.
* * *
DATE: MARCH 7, 2018
FROM: North Dakota Republican Party
TO: Gary Emineth
SUBJECT: Your candidacy
Dear Gary: At this time we are prepared to offer our support for you the position of Assistant Sergeant at Arms in the North Dakota House of Representatives in the 2019 Legislative Session. We don’t yet know who the Chief Sergeant at Arms will be, but we’ll find some POS to take that job and then we’ll recommend you to work for him and be in charge of emptying those POS Legislators’ wastebaskets. It doesn’t pay very much but you get to hang out with a lot of your POS political friends. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.
* * *
Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted on Gary’s political career.
