Port: I remember when Kevin Cramer was against belittling his constituents

MINOT — About a decade and a half ago, I was a blogger who was upset about the election of President Barack Obama. Both because of his dismissive attitude toward people outside of the Democratic party’s urban, coastal power bases — we were “bitter” and bigoted people clinging to our guns and religion, as he put it — and because he was promoting a policy agenda that seemed aimed at undermining the ways most North Dakotans make their living.

Obama made no bones about his disdain for fossil fuel energy, and states like North Dakota spent a great deal of time in court fighting back against his administration’s heavy-handed regulation of agriculture.

So, circa 2009, I helped organize the first tea party rallies in North Dakota. We booked speakers for those events. One of the speakers we in