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Port: I guess the NDGOP endorsement actually doesn't matter that much?.MINOT — This election cycle in North Dakota is an inflection point for the state's Republicans.Who are the real Republicans?Are they the slate of traditionally conservative legislative candidates backed by Gov.Kelly Armstrong, along with the statewide Republican incumbents?Or are they the populists who took over the NDGOP's smoky back rooms to elect themselves into party leadership positions and endorse their candidates?ADVERTISEMENT We'll find out what the voters think (to the extent they're paying attention to any of this) next month, though it's worth mentioning that the populists — for all their "we the people" fervor — don't care all that much what the people have to say.They don't want North Dakota voters to pick party nominees on the June ballot.They want those nominees to be chosen through the party's endorsement process.The smoky back rooms, again.The ones where the rules can be manipulated to produce the outcome the populist party insiders like.Though, it's worth pointing out that their fidelity to that process is entirely circumstantial.Case in point, in south-central North Dakota's District 31, a woman named Mary Graner is running for the Republican nomination for state House.Graner is something of a populist firebrand.In addition to being a candidate, she co-hosts a television show called "Ladies of Another View." You probably haven't seen it, but from the little I've seen of it, it's about what you think it is.A lot of hoo-hah about election and vaccine conspiracies, blah, blah, blah.What's ironic about the way Graner is campaigning is that she's referring to herself as the Republican-endorsed candidate.That's from a flyer she and her running mate, Rep.Karen Rohr, are sending out to voters in D31.It's headlined "Meet Your Republican Endorsed Team," but Graner was not endorsed by the North Dakota Republican Party.When the District 31 NDGOP held its local convention, former Rep.Jim Schmidt won the House endorsement alongside newcomer Kevin Remington.Rohr along with current Rep.Dawson Holle took third and fourth place, respectively.You know who didn't seek the the district endorsement?ADVERTISEMENT Why is that a big deal?Because earlier this year, when the populist-controlled NDGOP held its state convention, the party passed a resolution (introduced by Sons of Liberty founder Jerol Gohrick, who is currently facing two felony charges of terrorizing in Williams County) to strip the incumbents who boycotted the convention, and didn't seek its endorsement, of their right to call themselves Republicans.That resolution was pointless, petty and unenforceable, but it does illustrate the sentiment of people in Graner's political milieu about the primacy of the party endorsement process.That endorsement is supposed to be the only thing that matters in the nominating process.Last year, populist Republican lawmakers introduced legislation to make it so the only candidates who could appear on the June primary ballot would be the convention-endorsed candidates (it didn't pass).But here we have Graner, a loud proponent of the populist wing of the North Dakota Republican Party who has denounced the statewide candidates for skipping the NDGOP convention, touting herself as a Republican-endorsed candidate in the primary, despite skipping her own local convention.That is some rank hypocrisy, and it illustrates what all this folderol about who represents "true Republicans" is really about.Not ideological purity, or concern over the will of the people, but plain old political gamesmanship.