At the end of their letter castigating North Dakota media for not “listening to women,” Lana Rakow and Charlene Rawson accused local pundits of being out of touch not only with the female voters of the Dem-NPL but of the entire state who have been activated after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

I took some time to do as they asked, to take a breath and reconsider my perceptions and criticism of the Dem-NPL regarding their shoddy treatment of their candidate Mark Haugen who fell out of favor with the dogma of the party. For a variety of reasons, this didn’t result in a Road to Damascus moment disabusing me of my views on the matter.

Myself personally am not oblivious to the concerns that many women have for reproductive freedom. In fact I was present for and wrote about the rally held by local activists at Oak Park here in Minot after the Dobbs draft was leaked earlier this year. I am also not oblivious to the concerns that many women have over the lives of children who will never be born, a great many of whom live in the districts where Republicans are running unopposed this fall. Nor am I oblivious to the voters more concerned with undue government interference in areas of private life unrelated to abortion.

Rakow’s and Rawson’s letter insists that a majority of voters in this state support abortion, but according to a Pew Research poll 51% of adults in North Dakota are opposed in all or most cases with 47% in favor. Of that 51% opposed, 43% were female.

While there definitely is more room currently for compromise within even in the most conservative strongholds to allow some degree of access to abortion, banging the drum for unfettered and unrestricted abortion on demand isn’t likely to convince North Dakota voters to pull a reversal like we saw in Kansas.

So that begs the question, if Rakow and Rawson and the party whose actions they are defending are correct about the North Dakota constituency’s feelings on abortion or any issue for that matter, why are Democrats only competitive in the Red River Valley? It’s one their letter doesn’t even bother to reckon with.

As far as the treatment of Mark Haugen is concerned, Rawson and Rackow disingenuously framed Haugen’s decision to back out as him not wanting to lose in a three-way race. The only reason a dirty pro-lifer was on the Dem-NPL ticket at all was due to the fact that there was no one else willing to go up against incumbent Kelly Armstrong, because whoever it was surely was going to come up short. Basically, he was the only guy who wasn’t afraid to lose.

Heck, at the time the argument could be made his pro-life designation made him more electable in this state than the average Dem-NPL candidate would be otherwise. I acknowledge the Dobbs ruling upset the applecart in that regard, as Dem-NPL District 7 Chairman Patrick Englehardt did introduce a resolution in July to rescind the party’s support and tar and feather Haugen as they cast him out. But Haugen’s candidacy was instead affirmed, as the party voted to continue supporting him in the face of incredibly vitriolic internal opposition.

Unless one is being obtuse, the eventual pressure campaign by party luminaries was a blatant effort to avoid splitting the vote with their preferred candidate in Cara Mund, who has made abortion rights the main plank of her independent campaign. Rawson and Rakow don’t disagree on that fact; they just don’t see any problem with it, because they want their preferred candidate to have the best shot possible.

Given the uproar this caused within the Dem-NPL this wasn’t a showcase of “democracy in action.” Don’t take a leak on my leg and tell me it’s raining. It’s like taking your perfectly healthy adult dog on one last trip to the vet because you’ve found a new puppy you like better.

Whatever your feelings on abortion, the decision is now firmly in the hands of state legislatures. One would think the priority would be finding some way to give those disaffected by the Dobbs ruling another route to take, maybe by running a local candidate in their district who could shake up the legislature and maybe pass laws in our own state to codify and protect access to abortion.

If you care about abortion access in North Dakota, as the Dem-NPL and their proponents obviously do, then enter the arena, run for office in the next cycle in one of the 15 districts where the GOP is running unopposed, and do the work that their fellow Democrats did in 2007 when they sponsored and helped pass our state’s trigger law in the first place.

Who were those Dem-NPL legislators who voted yes on that bill beholden to? Was it the dogma of the party? The feelings of academics from Fargo? Or was it the wishes of their constituents?

“Lives literally are at stake,” as Rawson and Rakow said in their letter, but the reality is any woman in North Dakota seeking an abortion has only had a couple more miles added to the trip than before. What their letter seemed to sneer at is the notion that the average voter has other pressing concerns that aren’t as easily solved as crossing a bridge into Moorhead.

The only oblivious parties in this conversation seem to be Rawson and Rakow, committed as they are to this singular issue and a singular race that won’t affect state policy on it unless Congress votes to codify national abortion laws one way or the other.

It would do the Dem-NPL and their supporters good to remember how we got a trigger law passed at all and turn their attentions back to the state legislature. However, that does require them making their case to the voters of the Dem-neglected districts that apparently haven’t heard the good news and adopted their perspective. I know that might involve stepping in some manure and enduring rubbing elbows with proles, hayseeds and church ladies, but that’s politics outside the big city.

I myself am not telling anyone to “suck it up” regarding this issue. I’m just imploring those activated and angry to do more than pen trite letters defending acts of cynical political cowardice. It does their cause no favors.