More Than a Year Away From Election Day Republican Tom Campbell Is Already Carpet Bombing North Dakotans With TV Ads

State Senator Tom Campbell just dropped his third television ad of the 2018 election cycle.

Last week we got “Combine and a Prayer” as well as the pro-Trump ad “Message,” this week we get “Threshing.” Which Campbell turns into an agriculturally-themed pun.

He’s going to give Washington a threshing.

Do you get it? Because he’s a conservative outsider who has spent six years in the Legislature and is endorsed by dozens of members of that “good old boys club“?

You’d think, judging by the way Campbell is already furiously campaigning, that it was August of 2018 not August of 2017. Yet here we are.

Someone might want to tell Campbell that there’s a fine line between raising your name recognition with the public and annoying the hell out of them.

A prominent Republican who has spoken to Campbell about his campaign described the man to me as an “office seeker” and not a public servant. Which is to say that Campbell has more interest in being a member of the cushy U.S. Senate club than he does pursuing any specific policy agenda. That rings true to me given that Campbell has been drooling over running for higher office, any higher office, pretty much since he was elected to the Legislature.

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]Campbell is making a lot of noise right now, and perhaps that serves a purpose beyond the political consultants getting their fees while the getting is good. Maybe Campbell is trying to drown out the deep misgivings in Republican circles about his candidacy.[/mks_pullquote]

Plus, the policy-free pablum of these early ads hardly speaks to someone who has specific reforms in mind.

Campbell is going to be a boon to the advertising and political consultant industries. Those he hires are going to have a very profitable 2018 cycle thanks to a client who seems to have more money than sense.

Meanwhile, the actions-speak-louder-than-words indicators aren’t cutting Campbell’s way. Incumbent Senator Heidi Heitkamp and her fellow Democrats aren’t saying much about Campbell. That stands in stark contrast to the weeks of furious attacks they launched on Congressman Kevin Cramer, clearly worried that he’d enter the Senate race.

Our friends on the left are clearly worried about Cramer. Campbell? Not so much.

It’s also not good, as I pointed out in my Sunday print column, that Campbell’s entrance into the Senate race prompted national political prognosticators to shift their forecasts to favor Democrats.

Campbell is making a lot of noise right now, and perhaps that serves a purpose beyond the political consultants getting their fees while the getting is good. Maybe Campbell is trying to drown out the deep misgivings in Republican circles about his candidacy.

Campbell will almost certainly face competition for the NDGOP nomination. State Rep. Rick Becker has been considering a run (and was on Cramer’s public schedule last week, though Becker was mum on the nature of the meeting when I spoke with him). Cramer himself is also considering a Senate run, and NDGOP officials have been working on recruiting State Board of Higher Education member Kathy Neset as a candidate, too.