Myth of Power

"Brenarlo" does the excellent "Taking Back North Dakota" blog, dedicated (for the time being) to unseating North Dakota's powerful senator, Kent Conrad.

Conrad, along with Byron Dorgan, is a Democrat, and a liberal one at that. As mentioned in this blog before, North Dakota's three electoral votes are behind only Utah in terms of safety for the GOP. And yet year after year North Dakota returns the likes of Dorgan and Conrad (and South Dakota, Peterson and until recently Daschle) to Congress.

The theory is, farmers want their piece of the pork - in this case, the farm bills that are so important in putatively keeping so many farmers afloat. Democrats bring home the pork with style.

Brenarlo questions the logic:

A myth exists in North Dakota that we should keep electing our representatives back to Washington because they are "powerful" players in the Beltway. They sit atop of "powerful" committees. They are senior members of Congress. They can "bring home the bacon" so to speak. When they talk, the President listens. So I ask my fellow North Dakotans why aren't we looking at their records instead of their status?

I suggest because pork trumps record. Or to put it somewhat less cynically, self-interest trumps ideology. North Dakota's farmers, being inherently conservative, vote for Repubican presidents; strong defense and conservative national policy on most issues are winners among the farm community...

...until the farm bills are debated. Suddenly, the farmers of the Great Plains are as statist as the most goggle-brained AFSCME cheerleader.

So when Brenarlo notes...:

Senator Conrad is on the "powerful" Senate Finance and Budget Committees. He is widely respected in the Senate, but what good does a "powerful" senator from ND do in Washington if he votes for higher taxes every time the issue comes up? What good does a "powerful" senator from ND do in Washington when he constantly blasts President Bush for the budget deficits while voting against a balanced budget constitutional amendment?

...I have to agree...

...and ask, knowing the farmers of my hometown as I do, "will it matter?"

Of course it can. Farmers are engaged in their own self-interest, but they're not completely lost to it; Daschle's defeat shows it can be done.

Now, Tom Daschle did a lot to scupper himself; cozying up to Michael Moore was only the tip of is iceberg of two-facedness. Is Conrad that bad?

Maybe, says Brenarlo, noting aspects of Conrad's voting record - but that's a lot more subtle than Daschle was.

Read the blog often. It's going to be an interesting campaign.

Posted by Mitch at March 23, 2005 05:40 AM | TrackBack