Class Warrior Heidi Heitkamp Attacks Rick Berg’s Wealth

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Written By:
Rob Port

Sep 22, 2012
2:09pm

Liberal Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp’s latest ad, entitled “Explain,” is about as authentic as anything she’s put out this election cycle.  Which is to say, it’s not very authentic at all.  The candidate who has disavowed her own party’s political platform and, just election cycle after saying President Obama was “awesome” is now campaigning against him, is using committed Democrat operatives in her ads, casting them as “every day” North Dakotans.

This ad features one Robert Trefethren, whose son (also named Robert Trefethren) works for the state Democrat party (page 49), railing against Republican Senate candidate Rick Berg’s wealth.  ”Rick Berg is worth $24 million, but voted to cut college aid to pay for a tax break for millionaires like himself,”says Trefethren.

Look at North Dakota’s last two Democrat Senators.  Both Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad have finished their political careers as wealthy men.  Dorgan lives in a home in Virginia worth well over $1 million, and Conrad has done even better for himself living in a home in Delaware worth well over $3 million.  According to his last personal financial disclosure, made in 2010, Conrad is worth upwards of $3.5 million.  That same year Dorgan’s report had him worth more than $1.4 million.

Both men are leaving a lifetime in politics, with few of their adult years spent in the private sector, as millionaires.

Heitkamp, too, has long prospered from her political ties.  From 1980 through her failed campaign for governor in 2000 she served either in the federal government – as a lawyer for the EPA – or in state government, both as a hired bureaucrat and elected official.  From 2000 through her current run for the Senate, Heitkamp has served on the Board of Directors for Dakota Gassification, an appointment no doubt having more to do with Heitkamp’s political connections than her value as a businesswoman.

Yet these Democrats, who have spent almost no time in the private sector, have the audacity to attack Rick Berg who has accumulated what is admittedly an enormous fortune entirely in the private sector.  Berg has started several businesses, and been a success at nearly all of them, making him the millionaire he is today.

The Democrats rail against Berg’s wealth, as though it were a bad thing.  But what’s worse?  Being rich and running for political office?  Or getting rich after you’ve held political office?

Do we really want to elect someone like Heitkamp who clearly has such disdain for private sector success stories like Berg’s?