Democrat Gov Candidate Ryan Taylor Says Dalrymple Shouldn’t Take Oil Industry Contributions

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jul 12, 2012
4:48pm

Ryan Taylor, who clearly isn’t raising a lot of campaign money, is calling on Governor Jack Dalrymple to reject campaign contributions from the oil industry.

Democratic governor candidate Ryan Taylor criticized campaign contributions to North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple from oil company executives and called on his opponent to reject donations from energy interests.

Taylor, the state Senate minority leader, said the governor’s role as chairman of the Industrial Commission should prevent his campaign from accepting money from donors whose activities are overseen by the commission. He said Dalrymple should return the contributions or donate them to charity.

Telling Republicans who can and cannot support them financially seems to be a hot new trend on the left. It’s a shameful tactic, seeking to win politically by silencing the political speech (in the form of financial support) of opponents.

Taylor doesn’t want to win by being a better candidate than Dalrymple. He apparently wants to win by hamstringing Dalrymple’s ability to gather support. I’m not especially fond of Dalrymple as a candidate, but as a matter of political freedom, that’s just wrong.

What’s more, Taylor is holding Dalrymple to a ridiculous standard. In the legislature Taylor sits on the Higher Education Committee. Does that mean Taylor shouldn’t be allowed to take contributions from people who work at colleges? A look at Taylor’s disclosure reports shows a lot of support from labor unions, but no obvious contributions from oil interests.

Maybe Taylor’s problem isn’t so much that Dalrymple is getting oil industry money, but that his campaign isn’t getting any money.

When you’re the governor, you govern everybody. If Dalrymple can’t take contributions from the oil industry because he governs them, then he can’t take contributions from anybody.

This is an election-year gimmick by a desperate candidate who really doesn’t have anything else to offer.