OK, Doug Burgum, this time you’re on thin ice with me. It’s that time of year. The ice is getting thinner and thinner. but YOUR ice is really thin right now.

This past summer, you used your thick billfold to try to become president by offering to send $20 gift cards to anyone sending you a dollar, so you could reach a threshold of X number of donors in time to qualify for participation in the Republican presidential candidates’ debate. It was a cheap trick. Well, not so cheap, but still a gimmick only rich people could afford.

The Republicans set a donor threshold to try to weed out would-be candidates just looking for a venue to satisfy their egos but who realistically had no chance of becoming their candidate. I think the candidates needed 40,000 donors to their presidential campaigns. So every time someone sent Doug Burgum a dollar, it cost him $19 out of his own pocket. About three-quarters of a million dollars, I’d say.

Burgum had no realistic chance of getting 40,000 people to donate to his campaign, so his gimmick was, “If you send me a dollar, I’ll send you a $20 gift card.” Only a rich guy would resort to a trick like that.

Well, I did it. And the result was a bunch of e-mails from him along the way before he quit the race a few months later because I had to give him my e-mail address and phone number to get the gift card.

I got the card, and used it to buy a nice bottle of wine. It cost me $19.50 with tax. I kept the remaining 50 cents.

I thought that was the last I’d hear from him once he dropped out. Wrong. Well, not really wrong. He hasn’t contacted me lately. But he gave my contact info to his lieutenant governor, Tammy Miller, who wants to succeed him. And she started sending me e-mails, a bunch of them. I wasn’t sure why she thought I would give her money, but then I remembered I had given my e-mail address to Burgum, and she obviously got it from him,\ because one of her early e-mails said, “Welcome back, JIm. No need to fill out your donor information again. Just fill out your payment information and donate with one more click.”

Welcome back? Sorry lady, I ain’t been there before. Oh, but Burgum has, and he gave you my e-mail address. Damn! Well, I didn’t bite. But the e-mails kept coming and they kept asking for money. “Welcome back, JIm. No need to fill out your donor information again. Just fill out your payment information and donate with one more click.”

One thing I noticed about Tammy is that she’s careless. She keeps spelling my first name JIm. Capital J, Capital I, small m.

 Well, ignoring that, I’ve just been deleting them as fast as they come in. After reading her emails and campaign material, I realize she’s a phony as a three-dollar bill, with her talk of holding off the bad guys with a shotgun until the sheriff arrived. We don’t need a governor who takes a shotgun to work.

I wish, by the way, the next time some reporter interviews her, they would ask her to describe, in detail, one of those “numerous times” she had to hold a robber at gunpoint with her shotgun until the sheriff got there. I, for one, would like to know how she did that.

But I am still pissed at Burgum for sharing my contact info and donor history with her. I never gave him permission to do that.

But that was not as egregious as what he did this week.

On Wednesday I started getting text messages from the Trump campaign. Text messages to my personal cell phone. A lot of text messages. And guess what they said?

Welcome back JIm

No need to fill out your donor information again. Just fill out your payment information and donate with one more click.

“Welcome back JIm.” Capital J. Capital I. Small m.

“No need to fill out your donor information again.”

Again?

Coincidence?

I think not. Where do you think Trump got my phone number? And the texts just keep on coming.

• “From Lara Trump: My father-in-law won the primaries BIG LEAGUE!  Congratulate him on reaching 1,215 delegates with a personal message > https://e.securegop.com/d3p6pZCX8hh
• “From Lara Trump: My father-in-law needs your endorsement. Will you be voting for President Trump in November? Lock-in your answer >> https://e.securegop.com/t5qk0F67qLb”
• “From Trump: HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER! Radical Democrats want to SEIZE MY PROPERTY! Read my emergency update: https://d.gopgivenow.com/H52GfKD23Xc”
• “From Trump: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! Please tell me you’ll at least answer question 1. Take my MAGA POLL now: https://e.securegop.com/Cw5VqO6Ch4d”
• “Did you miss Lara Trump’s message?? She wants to know if YOU endorse Donald Trump for President. Decide: https://d.gopgivenow.com/ERLemtjkcZc”

That Lara Trump, in case you don’t know, is Eric Trump’s wife. And the newly installed chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. So in his continuing kissing of Trump’s hind end (not a small target), Burgum has now shared his fundraising list and personal information from his own campaign to the RNC and the Trump campaign. Mine and everyone else’s. Including our cell phones. So we are now getting flooded with texts. Some people have to pay extra to their cell phone provider to get texts. I don’t, but some do. And they are going to have to pay for those texts.

Now, if I start getting phone solicitations, I’m really gonna be pissed.

Thin ice, Burgum. Thin f***ing ice.