Attorney General Drew Wrigley has had his face posted on a giant postcard, too.

Oh look, another incumbent supporting another incumbent.

For background, visit nddistrict30.com or district30republican.com to read up. There’s a post there you might not have read, one about following the PAC money for the District 30 incumbent candidates.

But in their continued effort to waste all the trees possible by sending out giant postcards, District 30 incumbents Larson, Nathe, and Bosch have secured the thoughtless, sterile, cannon-fodder endorsement blurbs of North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley and Burleigh County Sheriff Kelly Leben, somehow suggesting that the official candidates and new blood selected at the district meeting wouldn’t also support law enforcement despite that being a clear part of their platform.

I’m not going to waste my time with Leben; when he ran for sheriff…well, I’m not a fan. His endorsement means nothing to me and I was already busy not voting for him from the get-go.

Wrigley, however, emerged from the ashes of scandal and a potentially ruined political career with some promise, seemingly a decent bloke. So it’s sad that I won’t vote for him again. It probably won’t affect his political career, but it matters to me.

YOU POLITICIANS HAD BETTER START DOING SOME RESEARCH BEFORE YOU ENDORSE INCUMBENTS.

“They didn’t show up at their own district meeting and were sneaky about trying to cancel it as if they were junior high kids but I endorse them because they support rule of law” is the vibe here, and it really sounds like a clanging gong. How courageous for lawmakers in red state North Dakota to take taxpayer money from a bloated surplus and throw it at law enforcement so they could wave the “back the blue” flag when election years rolled around.

Or maybe it was “John Hoeven supports them so I guess I will too” which is kind of like saying vanilla ice cream is often found at ice cream shops so that must mean something.

Few things are as toxic—as I’ve said before—than incumbency. You meet people at one tacky cocktail party over a plate of over-hyped strange hors d’oeuvres and all of a sudden quid pro quo rushes in and everyone is a good guy and the words of Rodney King echo on when you’re pressed to take a hard stand on something.

My friend and I frequently quote the ever-appropriate line from the ever-inappropriate movie “The Hangover” to express the lack of surprise we should feel when this kind of thing happens.

“I’m sorry. You mean the drug dealer at the liquor store wasn’t a good guy?”
— Stu, from ‘The Hangover’

“I’m sorry. You mean the career politicians at the state capitol are looking out for themselves?”

What kind of club has our representative “democracy” become where, once you get in it, you get some power and all the rest of the people who got in can count on you to swear you should keep getting in as long as you do the same for them so that no one else can get in?

For those keeping score, I’m currently not voting for Hoeven, Wrigley, Larson, Nathe, Bosch, and Leben.

Burt Gummer and Harry Doyle, however, are going to get quite a write-in workout on the ballot. Because they’re better than what the establishment keeps insisting on serving up. If anyone is doing a drinking bingo game on who the next endorsements will come from, let me know.