North Dakota Media Only Reports One Side Of The Story On Campaign Contributions
At the end of a fundraising cycle, the North Dakota media is all atwitter with the news of Rep. Earl Pomeroy and Senator Byron Dorgan sporting their usual hefty campaign war chests. What’s interesting is that those fundraising numbers are almost always considered to be news by journalists in the state, and they always breathlessly report on the big numbers complete with updates.
But you know what they never, ever consider to be news? That most of the money Pomeroy, Dorgan and their colleague Senator Kent Conrad (when it’s his turn to get re-elected) get almost all of their money from out-of-state liberal interests.
For the 2010 election cycle, Byron Dorgan has gotten 96% of his contributions from outside of North Dakota.
There isn’t even a North Dakota zip code in his top ten list of contributing geographical areas.
And the situation is pretty much the same for Earl Pomeroy. A full 93% of his money has come from out of state to date:
If the total amounts of money these guys are raising is big news to be reported on by the state media, why not some basic facts about where that money is coming from?
I’ve actually had this discussion, in an off-the-record fashion, with some reporters in the state and their excuse is that everybody “already knows” that most of their money comes from out of state. Well, everybody “already knows” that these guys raise millions of dollars for themselves every campaign cycle, so why is that news every election cycle but where it comes from isn’t?
It’s a question worth asking. Because this aspect of political fundraising in North Dakota pretty much never gets reported on. Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics
