“Red State” Senator Byron Dorgan Endorses Obama

And cites bogus North Dakota primary numbers in support of Obama.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan endorsed Barack Obama today, adding his name to the list of Democrats from red states that have endorsed the Illinois senator.
Dorgan said he joined colleagues such as Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius who are “really anxious to have a candidate on the top of the ticket who isn’t going to give up on a state before it begins.”
North Dakota voted for President Bush by a 63% to 36% margin over Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and Dorgan noted how his state had voted for a Democratic president just twice in the last century — for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
Dorgan credited Obama, who won 62% of the state’s caucus vote, with turning out twice as many Democrats as Republicans in the state’s Feb. 5 caucuses. “There’s something unusual happening here,” he said. Dorgan, who as a senator is also a superdelegate, said that he waited until after his state’s Feb. 5 primary to endorse a candidate in order to “watch the developments.”

First, while Dorgan’s primary vote numbers are true, it should be noted that Obama’s vote total was larger than the number of Republicans voting in the NDGOP primary as a whole is technically true, it’s also true that the North Dakota Democrat primary polls were open for 6 hours. The NDGOP polls were open for an hour and a half.
Clearly, the turnout had little to do with Obama and a lot to do with the length of time voting was open.
Second, all Democrat members of Congress from red states dominated by agriculture should have an asterisk next to their name. “Red” states like North Dakota elect Democrats not because they necessarily like liberals but because liberals are good at delivering on one key issue: Agripork. Dorgan brings home the ag subsidy bacon for North Dakotan, so North Dakotans keep sending him back to Washington DC.
I’m not surprised, though, that Dorgan would not only endorse a liberal candidate who sits to the left of Ted Kennedy in the US Senate but also be totally dishonest when doing so. It’s just how Dorgan operates.