North Dakota Democrats Get U.S. House Candidate And He's A Doozy

North Dakota Democrats are struggling to find statewide candidates, but it seems they may have gotten their first one over the weekend.

Cory McGarvey Sr. says he’s running for the Democrat nomination for the U.S. House, and he’s got a website and everything to prove it.

“I proudly endorse the candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders for President.  I will be campaigning for him as well as myself,” he writes on his campaign page.

“I am a Bernie Sanders style Independent although I will be running as a Democrat in North Dakota,” he continues.

I’m not sure that’s the sort of platform that one can ride to victory in a deeply Republican state North Dakota, but whatever. The Democrats need warm bodies on the ballot and McGarvey fits the bill. Though he may want to lay off the bad poetry on his personal Facebook page (see right).

Yikes.

I guess you could argue that McGarvey doesn’t seem like the sort of candidates Democrats would actually put on the statewide ballot. But then again we’re just weeks away from their statewide convention and it’s not like they have anyone else running. So we kind of have to take this guy seriously, right?

As I pointed out last week, I’m sure the Libertarians are watching this with interest.

Their candidate for the U.S. House, challenging Republican incumbent Kevin Cramer, is Jack Seaman. He was on the ballot in the same race in 2014 and while he didn’t get a very big percentage of the vote he’s generally well-respected and an articulate communicator.

What happens if the House race is between Cramer and Seaman and no Democrat candidate at all? Or a candidate like Mr. McGarvey who, all due respect, probably isn’t going to be taken very seriously by most voters?

It could be a real opportunity for the Libertarians. Not to win, mind you. Cramer is quite popular had has little to worry about, I think. But rather to put the man who is probably their best spokesman in front of a lot of voters during a campaign where he could probably expect a vote total several orders of magnitude larger than the typical third-party candidate receives.

That would be an absolute coup for them, even coming as it would less from Libertarian Party competence than Democrat incompetence.