CROOKED CRAMER’S CHRONICLES – CRAMER’S ME-FIRST PARTISAN STRATEGY – DON’T LET CRAMER’S FARM BILL SPIN FOOL YOU – POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM CAN’T COVER UP REAL RECORDS

Welcome to Cramer’s Chronicles where, every Friday, we’ll break down the latest and greatest weekly hits about Cramer’s crooked, self-serving, extreme, and gaffe-prone behavior that puts himself and his partisan politics ahead of North Dakotans.

CRAMER’S ME-FIRST, PARTISAN STRATEGY. If there’s one thing Cramer has mastered, it’s the art of the flip flop – especially when it comes to the trade war that’s dealing blows to North Dakota’s farmers, ranchers, and businesses. Cramer has put politics above the people he is supposed to represent, acting as a rubber stamp for the trade war to gain political favor. FIRST, Cramer took a wishy-washy position on the trade war, even though he was aware the damage it would cause to North Dakotans. NEXT, Cramer very briefly took a stand against the trade war, signing a letter with other House colleagues asking the president to reconsider broad tariffs. THEN, HE FLIPPED, claiming the president was right to enact tariffs and, since then, has refused to forcefully speak out against the trade war, claiming he doesn’t know whether they’ll have any real impact and stating that such CONCERNS ARE “HYSTERIA.”

See more on Cramer’s Anatomy of a Flip Flop here.

ND DEM-NPL LAUNCHES NEW DIGITAL AD ON CRAMER’S TRADE WAR. Congressman Cramer abdicated his responsibility to protect North Dakota’s farmers and businesses from the growing trade war. That’s unacceptable and it’s why the North Dakota Democratic-NPL launched its latest digital ad: to call on Cramer to work across the aisle and stop the harmful trade war, rather than continuing to kowtow to the president to win political favor. WATCH the ad here.

DON’T LET CRAMER’S FARM BILL SPIN FOOL YOU. Cramer’s Washington party bosses may be trying to hand him a political lifeline by appointing him to the Farm Bill Conference Committee, but this appointment won’t erase the well-documented years Cramer has spent playing politics with North Dakota’s farmers and the Farm Bill. Here are the facts:

• Cramer has never served on the House Committee on Agriculture.
• In 2013, Cramer tried to sink the Farm Bill, earning him the label of ideologue, someone who “rejects compromises and insists on policies that are ideologically pure” by the Grand Forks Herald.
• Cramer’s partisan antics prompted the Williston Herald to call on him to “take a lesson” from Senators Heitkamp and Hoeven on working across the aisle to get results.
• Cramer is a dues-paying member of an extreme anti-agriculture group that has pushed for eliminating the Renewable Fuel Standard, eliminating the sugar program, and for devastating cuts to crop insurance and nutrition programs.
• Cramer didn’t even know when the Farm Bill passed out of committee earlier this year.

OUR TAKE: “There’s only one person in this race who has, and will continue, to advocate on behalf of North Dakota’s interests – and it isn’t Kevin Cramer.”

HEADLINE: POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM CAN’T COVER UP POLITICAL RECORDS. NDxPlains’ Tyler Axness sums up Cramer’s appointment to the Farm Bill Conference Committee perfectly when he asks, “If [Cramer] couldn’t be effective then, what makes us think he could be effective on a packed conference committee?”

ICYMI: HEITKAMP HOLDS “FUNDRAISING ADVANTAGE” OVER CRAMER. Heidi has more than double the cash on hand of Congressman Cramer, $5.2 million to $2.4 million – shattering fundraising records for any North Dakota U.S. Senate candidate. Heidi raised nearly $2 million in the second quarter.

CRAMER DECLINES MORE DEBATES THAN HE ACCEPTS. So far, Heidi and Congressman Cramer have agreed to three debates before the election, but what he doesn’t want North Dakotans to know is that he’s declined to participate in at least four more, whereas Heidi has agreed to ten. This leaves us wondering: what’s Cramer hiding? Tyler Axness of NDxPlains Blog observed, “Perhaps it is proving difficult to discover those accomplishments which leads him to shy away from true debates. Quite simply, it makes a person wonder if he is afraid of debating Heitkamp and speaking about his record?”

REMEMBER WHEN CRAMER SAID THE TRADE WAR WAS “POSITIVE” FOR ND? This makes us wonder: has Cramer seen the news or talked to anyone in North Dakota lately?

(BONUS) QUOTE OF THE WEEK.
Steele County, ND farmer: “Cramer boasts about (how) he votes with the president all the time. I don’t think that’s good for North Dakota.”

TWEET OF THE WEEK.

Hope to see you all at the state fair and parade this weekend!