Take Another Potential Candidate Off The Table For North Dakota Democrats

Yesterday I wrote about Democrats considering former Lt. Governor candidate Ellen Chaffee for governor. This morning Chaffee herself weighed in on the issue claiming that she’s not running nor was anyone asking her to do so:

I flat-out don’t believe Chaffee when she says nobody was asking her to run. That’s certainly not the impression I was given from people who would know. But whatever. Rumors are rumors.

The larger issue here is that Democrats have lost yet another potential statewide candidate, adding Chaffee to the long list of Democrats in the state who want no part of trying to win an election against Republicans.

Which is just remarkable. There are three open partisan races on the statewide ballot this year. Governor Jack Dalrymple is not running for another term, nor are Auditor Bob Peterson or Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm.

In North Dakota it’s pretty rare to have this many open races on the statewide ballot at once, and you’d think Democrats would be jumping at the opportunity to maybe put candidates in these races which are absent typically hard to beat incumbents.

But they aren’t. Which speaks loud and clear about the sorry state of their party.

Meanwhile, Republicans have a rip-roaring, three-man race for Governor, a two-candidate race for auditor, and a candidate for insurance commissioner. All of these candidates have been in the race for weeks.