North Dakota Democrats Upset That Michelle Bachmann Isn’t From North Dakota

Update: A reader emails to note that the current executive director of the ND Democrat party, Joe Aronson, is from Minnesota. And he was hired by…Mark Schneider. Which makes the post below all the more hilarious.
The NDGOP is staging a one-of-a-kind rally later this month called the Take Back Washington rally.. It’s a listening session aimed at letting rank-and-file members of the limited government movement speak out to Republican party and political leadership. Keynoting the event will be Minessota Rep. Michelle Bachmann, perhaps the only elected member in good standing of the tea party movement.
The other speakers? They’ll all be speaking from the crowd.
Unfortunately, trial lawyer/North Dakota Democrat party chairman Mark Schneider has his underwear in a bunch about Bachmann coming into the state to speak. Because she’s (brace yourselves) not from North Dakota.
She’s totally from right-next-door Minnesota. And how dare she come to North Dakota and talk about politics!
I’ve included Schneider’s entire denouncement of Bachmann/fundraising email below.
What is actually more than a little hilarious about this is that the Democrats never seem to have a problem when liberals from other states come here to speak. Plus, Mr. Schneider’s party routinely gets roughly 85% of its funding from out-of-state contributors. According to OpenSecrets.org, Rep. Earl Pomeroy has gotten just 10% of his campaign financing from North Dakotans so far in 2010. Dorgan, though he recently announced his retirement, got 96% of his campaign finances from out of state in the 2010 election cycle. And Senator Kent Conrad, though he’s not running this cycle, got 93% of his money from out of state in the 2006 cycle when he was running for re-election.
So, in summary, the state party (from state-level Democrat candidates get most of their funding) gets 85% of its funding from out of state. And the three highest ranking members of the party get between 90% and 97% of their financing from out of state.
And Schneider has the cojones to lecture Republicans about out-of-state money.
Wow.

Over the past year we have seen outside groups and people come into North Dakota to try and tell us how we should run our state.
Out-of-state big-insurance and big-business interests spent over $5 million to tell us to oppose health care reform and the employee fair choice act. We had organizations spend money to pay people to conduct live calls against our delegation. Those same interests helped spur the “Tea Party” movement, including spreading misinformation about “death panels,” Medicare cuts, and the impact of health care reform. And recently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to Fargo to advance his own obstructionist agenda.
But this latest out-of-state intrusion takes the cake.
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is coming to Bismarck on February 12th to head an event called “Take Back Washington” rally and town hall meeting. The event is meant to launch the 2010 candidacies of the ND GOP.
Michele Bachmann is coming into North Dakota to benefit her own agenda, not that of North Dakota, and the ND GOP is going right along with it.
Congresswoman Bachmann holds a very right-wing ideological viewpoint, and is not afraid to spread misinformation to get it across. This is the woman who repeated the “Death Panel” lie over the summer, accused President Obama and members of Congress of holding views that are “anti-american,” and urged people not to answer questions on the census. All the while she has greatly increased her own profile, and seeks to do that with her appearance in Bismarck.
The ND GOP is falling for her right-wing bent and self-promoting agenda, but we see right through it. We must stand up together and let her, and the ND GOP, know that we will not stand to see our state be infiltrated with misinformation that doesn’t benefit a single North Dakotan.
Will you contribute today to help us fight back against the ND GOP and Michele Bachmann?
Her brand of politics doesn’t belong anywhere in North Dakota. Please contribute today and help us fight back against Michele Bachmann and the politics of misinformation.
Sincerely,
Mark Schneider, Chair