George Sinner: I Want To Unite With Those Radical Woman-Hating Extremists On The Right

“My goal is to try and pull people together,” newly-announced Democrat House candidate George Sinner said of his campaign yesterday while announcing in Bismarck.

If he truly believes that, he may want to have a talk with the leaders of his state party.

During the legislative session last year – the one Sinner served in as a state Senator – his party sent out email blasts accusing Republicans of being “extremists” no fewer than 62 times.

His state party has also adopted a party resolution stating that, “North Dakota Republicans have denied and turned their backs on the emergent danger women face by simply being women in this state.”

Back in October of last year, in an email touting Sinner’s possible candidacy, state party chairman Bob Valeu wrote that “North Dakotans are disgusted with the radicalism” of Republicans. And every other email blast the North Dakota Democrats have been sending out about Cramer specifically has called him some variation of an “extremist.”

If Sinner wants to “pull people together,” maybe his political party shouldn’t be calling the opposition “extremists” and “radicals” who want women to be in danger.

Maybe, if Sinner is going to make these sort of comments in public, some plucky journalist should ask him how he can mean them when his political party behaves the way it does.

Really, he should take a page from Heidi Heitkamp’s playbook. She won by casting her opponent Rick Berg as a plutocrat slumlord who attacks women (though Heitkamp has since been revising that history a bit).

On a related note, I thought this spin about his oft-delayed campaign announcement was pretty funny:

He said he waited to begin his campaign for a number of reasons, among them stepping away from his job to dedicate the time necessary for a campaign. Sinner has worked in business for more than 30 years and is an agriculture-business banker and senior vice president for American Federal Bank.

It also comes down to the public’s general dislike of long, expensive and, at times, nasty campaigns, Sinner said.

“The public hates these things, and so do all of us,” Sinner said. “So let’s just shorten it up a little bit, and maybe we won’t need quite so much money, too.”

Funny how Democrats didn’t feel that way during the 2012 cycle, when their House and Senate candidates (Pam Gulleson and Heidi Heitkamp) were both in the race by November of 2011, about four and a half months earlier than Sinner.