If You Want To Know Why North Dakotans Can’t Trust Heidi Heitkamp, Look No Further Than Kent Conrad

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Written By:
Rob Port

May 4, 2012
12:56pm

If there were a theme for Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign this election season, it would be “I’m not really a Democrat.” Or, more specifically, “I’m not the Democrat I was a few years ago.”

Heitkamp’s move away from her party, and away from her past positions on issues such as Obamacare and President Obama’s candidacy for president, have made national headlines. But Heitkamp would have us believe that she’d be a moderate Democrat willing to stand up to her increasingly far-left party on issues important to North Dakotans.

Heitkamp has made this argument particularly in the energy arena, where she’s criticized the Obama administration’s maneuvering on the controversial Keystone pipeline and claimed that she’s a friend of the state’s coal industry (the latter not sitting well with actual coal industry advocates in the state).

But talk is cheap. Does Heitkamp have the courage of her convictions? It’s worth noting that her fellow North Dakota Democrats didn’t.

Earl Pomeroy, who long laid claim to the title of conservative “Blue Dog” Democrat, betrayed North Dakotans by voting for Obamacare in 2009. He paid the price in 2010, losing to his Republican challenger by a solid ten points.

Even the Democrat Heitkamp hopes to replace in the Senate – Kent Conrad – is a shining example of actions speaking louder than words. Not only did Conrad vote for Obamacare, ludicrously arguing that the legislation actually reduces the budget deficit (false claims Heitkamp herself has repeated), but he caved quickly on marking up a budget in the Senate Budget Committee he chairs when his party told him not to.

Kent Conrad’s legacy, much like Earl Pomeroy’s, is to putting on a good show of moderate, independent bravado but then ultimately toeing the party line.

Heitkamp, for all her talk of being independent from her party, would be no different.