BUSTED!

I did a bad thing this week. And it looks like I got caught. I’m not sure how, because when you cast a vote in North Dakota, or anywhere else in the country I think, it is supposed to be “secret.”

But I guess something went awry with that, so I’m confessing, and asking forgiveness.

What I did was, I voted in the Republican column in Tuesday’s Primary Election.

And then, just a couple days later, I got a letter in the mail. Here’s what it said.

HOW THE HELL DID THEY FIND OUT THAT FAST?

I won’t share the rest of the letter with you, but suffice it to say they want me to take a little poll, and send them a check reaffirming that I am a Republican, in the enclosed envelope.

Now anyone who’s known me for more than about 15 minutes knows I’m no Republican. I’ve voted for Democrats ever since I could vote. Starting in 1968. Partly because my Dad advised me back then it was better to be a Democrat than a Republican (he told me that during the JFK and LBJ years), but mostly because I believe in most things the Democratic Party stands for and am skeptical about the things the Republican Party stands for. Still, my Dad was a wise man.

Anyway, I certainly don’t believe in most things Julie Fedorchak stands for, and I’m worried that she will beat my friend Trygve Hammer in November. So I thought that if enough of us Democrats voted for that wacko candidate Alex Balazs in the Primary, maybe he’d beat her, and then we could elect Trygve in November. Well, apparently not enough of us did that. We should have known that North Dakotans don’t like to vote for people who have the letter “z” in their name.

So I felt bad, because Trygve and the other Democrats I generally would have voted for got fewer votes in the election, making the Democratic-NPL Party in North Dakota look even weaker than it already is.

But my friend Tracy Potter made me feel a little less bad when he reminded me that once upon a time that strategy actually worked for the Democrats in North Dakota, and helped re-elect one of our state’s best-ever Governors, Bill Guy. That was in 1968.

In the 1968 Primary Election, Bismarck car salesman Robert McCarney beat the Republican-endorsed candidate Edward Doherty in the Primary Election, and most folks said it was because a whole bunch of Democrats did what I did last Tuesday—crossed over and voted for McCarney, because they thought he would be easier to beat than Doherty.

I wasn’t among those who did that, because I wasn’t old enough to vote in that Primary Election, which was held on September 3. I turned 21 two days later, on September 5, and I wrote in and got an absentee ballot from my U.S. Navy duty station in Florida, and voted for the Democrats and sent it back to North Dakota, puffing up my chest a bit as I said that now I am not only a sailor but I’m old enough to vote.  

There’s a little sidebar to that election for me, by the way. I was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, learning how to be a Navy photographer. I was off the base, in town, one might that fall and I saw a poster that said Alabama Democrats were looking for volunteers to cross the state line, just a few miles away, and help deliver Democrat voter’s  guides door-to-door the next Saturday, right before the election. There was going to be a bus leaving Pensacola for Mobile, Alabama, Saturday morning and coming back that evening.

    That was the election Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey, the sitting Vice President, was running against Richard Nixon, after LBJ had decided not to seek re-election.  Well, I was from next door in North Dakota, and I liked Hubert Humphrey, thinking he just might end the Vietnam War before I had to go there, and I found a couple guys from Minnesota stationed there with me, and we hopped on that bus Saturday morning, and went to Alabama to help elect Hubert Humphrey.

Except there was a problem. Humphrey wasn’t on the ballot. The Democratic nominee for President that year in Alabama was George Wallace. Remember him? Somehow the folks in Alabama figured out a way to keep Humphrey off the ballot and put their favorite son, George Wallace, in his place. We took a look at those guide cards they handed us and said “No, thanks. We’re not interested in helping to elect George Wallace.”

So we wandered around Mobile most of the day, found a few bars (I had just turned 21, so I could finally drink in a bar), ate some cheap food, and found our way back to the bus to go back to Florida at sunset.

But I digress. Sorry. It was just kind of fun to remember that. I called my Dad the next morning and he told me Bill Guy beat McCarney handily in that 1968 gubernatorial election and my absentee ballot helped elect him.

I don’t know if my Dad was one of those who crossed over in the Primary to get McCarney on the ballot, but he sure was happy that Bill Guy, a fellow Navy man, beat him. Guy served four more years, followed by Art Link for eight. Those days were the heyday of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party.

I can’t remember now if I’ve ever crossed over and voted in the Republican column before. I know I’m feeling a little guilty about it, hence this confession. I probably won’t do it again. But then, never say never. For now, I’m going to try to help Trygve get elected. He’s a good guy. And, like my Dad, and me, and Bill Guy, a Navy man.