Howard Dean Avoided In North Dakota
Do you know who was conspiculously absent from the proceedings? The top two candidates on the North Dakota Demcorat ticket. That's right, neither Kent Conrad nor Earl Pomeroy were at the event. Neither was Byron Dorgan, for that matter, though he isn't campaigning this year.
So where were the state's top Democrats when their national party leader made a rare visit to North Dakota? We don't know. According to state Democrat Director Jim Fuglie all three had schedule conflicts.
I don't buy that for a minute. All three congressmen avoided Dean because they didn't want themselves associated with the man. They know that Dean's politics are the polar opposite of the politics of most North Dakotans.
Which makes me wonder why Dean was even invited to Fargo in the first place. When your top candidates have to avoid the man to avoid getting into trouble with the electorate shouldn't that give state Democrats a clue? And speaking of people being clueless, take a peek at what Dean had to say about his visit to North Dakota on Meet The Press:
"I just got back from North Dakota. There's not more than a war on terror going on in this country, there's a war on the middle class going on. You know, those folks need help. And we need help domestically. We need a change in this country. We need a new direction.
"This is a President who has been bad for America. You should see what's going on in North Dakota. Farmers who haven't had any drought relief, people losing their health care. The President's paying no attention to the middle class. Kids want to go to college. They can't do that now because the President's cut their Pell Grants. There's a lot of problems in this country not being addressed.
"We need a strong middle class to make America strong again, and with Democratic leadership we'll have that middle class strong again with the ability to go to college, with the ability to count on your pension, and with the ability to decent health care."
I hate to break it to Dean, but North Dakota is in boom times right now. State-wide unemployment is just 3.8%, the state has a nearly $300 million budget surplus and tax revenues (both on the state and municipal levels) are skyrocketing.
Frankly, I find it a little demeaning that Howard Dean went on national television and implied to the whole country that North Dakota is in dire straits. We aren't. Yeah, there's a drought, but since when has North Dakota seen a year go buy when we weren't applying for federal agriculture disaster money? Frankly, if our congressional leadership worked more toward making farmers ranchers independent rather than dependent on the approval of federal money by bureaucrats in Washington these ag emergencies wouldn't be such a hardship.
I think this whole situation is just another indication of how North Dakota Democrats - up to and including Conrad, Dorgan and Pomeroy - like to pretend like they represent the views and opinions of average North Dakotans, but in reality are more akin to people like Dean in their politics.
(via Taking Back ND)













