Noted Obama Supporter Claims She’s Against Intrusive Federal Regulation

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jul 19, 2012
10:42am

Since being elected President, Barack Obama as pushed for the federal government to take more power from the states in all areas of government from social policy to environmental regulation. Obama has accelerated an already problematic national trend toward centralizing government authority.

Now, despite supporting Obama’s election in 2008 and despite saying she’ll vote for him again in 2012, Heitkamp is posturing herself as some sort of a champion of federalism in her new ad:

It’s amazing just how far to the right Heitkamp feels she has to go to win election in North Dakota. In fact, she’s campaigning so far to the right, you have to wonder why (assuming she’s being authentic in her shift) she’s still a member of her party. Are we to believe that this shift is anything other than a liberal Democrat campaigning as a conservative to win an election so that she can drift back to the left once she’s an entrenched incumbent?

The title of Heitkamp’s ad is “land grab” which is humorous given that former Senator Byron Dorgan, a member of Heitamp’s own party who held the very office she’s running for, was instrumental in passing legislation creating a National Heritage Area land designation here in North Dakota without the consent of land owners and without giving them the choice of opting out.

Worse, back when the EPA was holding hearings in North Dakota on the question of whether or not state control of regional haze regulations should be ended, Heitkamp attended the hearings but didn’t join other North Dakota leaders in speaking out.

Heitkamp has also called for a “national energy policy,” but what is that if not more energy decisions being made in Washington DC and fewer made in North Dakota?

What’s really fascinating is that Heitkamp, a former EPA lawyer, is juxtaposing this new-found federalism alongside her continued support for Obamacare which will have the federal government controlling the health insurance market, leaving North Dakotans with no choice but to buy their insurance from only those choices available on a government-controlled market.

Heitkamp clearly knows the character she has to portray to get elected in North Dakota, but the mask she’s trying to put on doesn’t fit.