Heitkamp Should Be in Biden’s Cabinet, but Identity Politics May Keep Her Out
MINOT, N.D. — Heidi Heitkamp’s post-Senate career has been incongruous with the realities of her political accomplishments.
For the last two years, she’s been heralded, by national Democrats and the national news media, as an expert on rural Americans and their political issues.
A sort of rube whisperer for the progressives, if you will.
This despite Heitkamp having won just one electoral contest in rural America, by thinnest of razor-thin margins, in the last almost two-and-a-half decades. In 2018, Heitkamp’s campaign quadrupled her challenger Kevin Cramer’s spending and still managed to lose decisively.
Heitkamp’s qualifications as an expert on rural politics are dubious, at best.
Still, in the galaxy of people President-elect Joe Biden could potentially appoint to his cabinet, Heitkamp would be a good choice. For North Dakota, specifically, and for rural Americans, generally.
She’s probably about the best America’s Republican-leaning rural areas could hope for from a Democratic administration.
