Democrat Party Chair Bob Valeu Can't Wait Until North Dakota Fails

North Dakota Democrat party chairman Bob Valeu has always been a bit of an intemperate bomb thrower, but after the drubbing Dems took in the election on Tuesday his social media postings have been like reading something out of the Book of Revelations.

Maybe that’s understandable. I’d be feeling apocalyptic too if my party couldn’t even knock off a Republican who spent a month of the campaign cycle in rehab. Hell, I’d be feeling apocalyptic if the only thing my party had to brag about was a one-seat pick up in the state Senate – Erin Oban in District 35 – which cost more than most of the Democrat statewide campaigns.

But tonight Valeu has a particularly humorous serious of postings. First was this tweet in which Valeu seems to yearn for the day when the bottom might fall out of the oil markets and leave North Dakota high and dry.

I understand why Democrats might want things to change for the worse in North Dakota. After all, as long as incomes keep rising and jobs are plentiful there’s not likely to be much appetite to start voting out Republicans. But it’s unusual to hear a Democrat just come right out and say that.

But Valeu’s ranting was all the more humorous given this which he posted on Facebook a few hours before his tweet:

Just so we’re clear, Valeu is (gleefully, it seems) predicting doom should the oil industry take a hit, but he and his fellow Democrats also treat any effort to reform the state’s oil tax structure as some sort of a political third rail.

In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mac Schneider was accusing Republicans of wanting to reform the oil tax shortly before election day, as though even broaching the idea is offensive.

Wouldn’t it make sense, if we’re concerned about where shifts in the oil markets might leave the state financially and economically, to at least consider reforms to the oil tax?

But maybe that doesn’t make sense to someone who cares more for partisan politics than sound policy. After all, what incentive do Democrats have (aside from just being human beings) to protect the state from future economic/fiscal calamity when such an event would likely be the path they need out of the political wilderness?

Still, how absolutely cynical to be actively promoting ugly outcomes for the state for the sake of political gain.