Heidi Heitkamp’s Campaign Attacks Appointment of North Dakota Representative to Farm Bill Negotiations

North Dakota is a state that runs on agriculture, and it’s an unfortunate reality that agriculture is extremely vulnerable to federal policy. So when a new farm bill is being negotiated in Washington D.C. the agriculture industry here in North Dakota looks on with trepidation.

So you’d think that we could all agree it’s welcome news when a North Dakota representative is appointed to help negotiate the differences between the House and Senate versions of the most recent farm bill effort.

Not if you’re Senator Heidi Heitkamp.

The one-term incumbent, who has invested a lot of time and out-of-state campaign money in crafting an image of herself as a moderate willing to work with Republicans, had her campaign minions go into attack mode when news broke that Congressman Kevin Cramer, her opponent this election cycle, will be one of the House negotiators on the farm bill alongside Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson.

Heitkamp flak Julia Krieger, a political operative hired away from the far-left group Media Matters, called Cramer’s appointment “politics at its worse.”

Heitkamp campaign spokeswoman Julia Krieger called Cramer’s conference committee appointment “politics at its worst,” suggesting he’s unqualified because he doesn’t serve on the ag committee.

When Republicans pointed out, in rebuttal to this bomb throwing from Krieger, that former Democratic Congressman Earl Pomeroy was also appointed as a farm bill negotiator through a committee other than Agriculture…

…the Heitkamp campaign threw another tantrum. This time accusing Republicans of supposedly attacking Pomeroy:

In summary, Cramer getting appointed as a farm bill negotiator is “politics at its worse” apparently because it’s politically inconvenient for Heidi Heitkamp (even as it’s good for North Dakota in general) and pointing out that a North Dakota Democrat was appointed in a similar fashion is, according to the Heitkamp campaign, a nefarious attack on that Democrat.

All this hyper partisan anger, again, from a Senator who is spending a lot of money to paint herself as a conservative Democrat who is so pragmatic she’ll gladly work with Republicans.