North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp seems to be on the path to political palookaville even before this week; polls were showing her trailing republican Kevin Cramer by two digit margins.
A fiasco over the weekend would seem to have not only put the final nail in her political coffin, but if there is any justice in the world should be tied into the Democrats frothing hypocrisy on #MeToo.
The Senator and her campaign placed an ad in the Bismarck Tribune with “signatures” from 127 “sexual assault survivors“. It was in response to a statemenr by Cramer that indicated North Dakota women were too tough to get sexually harassed:
Sen Heitkamp was upset by this and apparently decided to capitalize on it by running a full-page ad in the Bismarck Times [it’s the Bismarck Tribune – Ed.] and several other papers on Sunday. The ad contains a statement about survivors of sexual abuse and is signed by 127 women who, in the context of the ad, are identifying themselves as survivors. But some of the women named in the ad came forward to say they never consented to have their names appear in it.
And some have since come forward to say that they weren’t survivors of any form of sexual abuse at all, and at least one said that she had only told a few people about her episode, and found the whole thing really, really scary.
(One must also wonder if the Democrat party doesn’t expect us to “believe survivors” by dint of the fact that the Democrat party puts them out there as “survivors”, facts be damned.)
In a just world, this will not only take down Heitkamp, but slop over onto Amy Klobuchar.
Someone is probably going to lose their job over this. We need that someone to keep working for the Democrats, so let’s not be too harsh. 🙂
Cramer has always struck me as an “Energizer bunny” type of politician. He just keeps running and running. He also stokes the deep-seated sense of inferiority that percolates below the surface of North Dakota culture.
Going back over 100 years, North Dakotans have resented the influence of Eastern elites, bankers and the grain companies. Ironically, though, North Dakota floats on a sea of Federal subsidies for agriculture and Air Force bases and missile installations. Despite feeding at the Federal trough, many North Dakotans love to bite the hand that feeds them. Kevin Cramer is no exception.
I consider it blatantly hypocritical for North Dakotans to expect one palm to be greased by our national government while they use their other hand to slug the Feds with a fist.
⬆️expert on NoDak culture.
I’ve just been libsplained!
North Dakota floats on a sea of Federal subsidies for agriculture and Air Force bases and missile installations.
All due respect, but that’s positiviely Krugmanesque.
During the height of the Cold War, when the USAF’s presence in the state was 3-4 times what it is today, North Dakota was in the lower half of the US for per capita income.
And while having bases around the state brought in some rent and grocery money, it’s not like they got their bombers overhauled at Boeing of Minot, or got parts for Minutemen at Lockheed of Grand Forks. The leases on silo space paid to farmers were pretty much market rate, and there are half as many now as thirty years ago.
Federal farm subsidies bring a lot more federal money to the state than they did, and always have. Do ND Republicans belly up to the trough? You bet. Do ND Democrats stand in principle and abstain from bellying up?
Pffft. They promise to do it even more. Get real.
But today, ND has some of the highest per capita income in the country. Why is that? The shrintking and mostly frictional USAF presence? The farm bills, which have been a pretty steady source for decades and decades?
Nope. Oili (west of the Missouri), technology (in the oil fields and the Red River Valley), and a lot of ripple effects in betwseen (including my oili-free, tech-free hometown, where wages at WalMart start near $15/hour with no mandate they do so). Both of which happened withoiut the feds; in the case of oil, it happened with great resistance from Obama.
But go ahead. Try and Libsplain me more about NoDak.
Isnt it because of all the oil fields up there now? Especiall now that oil is above the magic $65 a barrel it needs to be at for it to be profitable to do shale oil fracking?
there are also spots in ND Ive heard where rent is more expensive than NYC
He also stokes the deep-seated sense of inferiority that percolates below the surface of North Dakota culture.
“Inferiority” is a loaded word. There is a real sense that outsiders are out there to f**k you over, and that sense is correct more often than not.
It’s been interesting watching long-time natives (and some of us expats) adjust to the changes in the state; the notion that not only do we not need to feel that way anymore, but that in fact there’s a lot to be proud of – as natives, and as conservatives.
Not that outsiders understand anything about it.
POD,
the magic $65 a barrel it needs to be at for it to be profitable to do shale oil fracking?
It needs to be above $65 to make exploration pay off. Once the wells are drilled, the break-even on production is much lower.
While the exploration boom-time has paused, the production business is doing very very well.
And when the boom paused, rents fell back into line. Williston is no longer more expensive than NYC or San Francisco. The man camps are empty, the hotels have vacancies. The Okies have moved back south (the ones that didn’t put down roots – as many did).
But wages are doing very well, across the state.
Back to the topic, with friends like Heitkamp, victims of sexual abuse really don’t need any enemies. It’s as if the left is trying to remind us that voting to keep a sexual predator in the White House in 1998 was NOT an aberration for them. Nor was it anything different when they voted to continue federal funding for an organization that blithely ignores its responsibility to report obvious cases of statutory rape.
Imagine if the US was set up the way the way the liberals would, currently, like it to setup: no senate, a pure democracy (accept they would keep the 14th amendment). All of the US interior wuld become, in effect, colonies of the more populous and left-leaning coastal states.
That’s your recipe for a real civil war.
MP, funny you should bring that up. Kurt Schlichter’s investigated this in his books, People’s Republic and Indian Country.