Joe Aronson, Bismarck, letter: Desperate GOP gets personal in N.D. race

BISMARCK — I am writing in response to the press release that was submitted as a letter by Adam Jones, executive director of the North Dakota Republican Party (“Mock challenged readers to not vote,” Page D3, Oct. 10).

In his letter, Jones personally attacks secretary of state candidate Corey Mock yet again while ignoring the issues that are relevant to the office.

Jones took out of context a satirical article written by then-college student Mock to use it against him. Anyone who reads the article can understand that Mock is using satire to make a point that voting is important.

Mock has spent the past seven months talking only about the issues of the office and has never once personally attacked his opponent. For Jones to insist that by bringing up Secretary of State Al Jaeger’s mistakes — mistakes that Jaeger has taken responsibility for and whose authenticity have never been challenged by the press — that Mock is running a negative campaign is an insult to the voters.

The office of secretary of state is too important to be won or lost on trivial matters such as student-newspaper articles written by a candidate when he was a student.

Jones clearly wants to change the subject from the time Jaeger signed a contract with a bankrupt out-of-state company, the time Jaeger left a candidate’s name off the ballot or the time Jaeger wasted $770,000 of taxpayers’ money on a computer system that was abandoned because it did not work.

Not to mention the fact that the taxpayer-funded secretary of state’s web site has out-of-date and incorrect information relevant to our elections.

These are the issues that affect each and every North Dakotan.

I challenge Jaeger, Jones and the North Dakota GOP to spend the last few weeks leading up to the election talking about the issues that matter to all North Dakotans, not trying to change the subject away from them.

Joe Aronson

Aronson is executive director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party.

Tags: in the mail, corey mock, al jaeger, secretary of state, elections 2010, opinion, politics