Port: Let’s dispel some myths about the alleged success of North Dakota’s independent candidates

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MINOT, N.D. — The weeks after Election Day is when politicos on the losing side of the vote spin the outcome for various self-serving reasons.

Success has a thousand fathers, the saying goes, but failure is an orphan.

Nobody likes to be a loser.

In North Dakota, much of the spin is around two independent candidates who, despite losing in landslides, want credit for a job well done.

Independent candidate Cara Mund, beaten by nearly 25 percentage points, is one example. Many of the state’s political commentators want to put the “rising star” label on her ( that’s Crosby Journal columnist Steve Andrist’s term ) despite an objectively pedestrian performance at the ballot box.

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