Thanks to the Coen brothers, Fargo has been something of a punchline for the better part of a decade. Now, however improbably, it’s also become a kind of a mini-Ground Zero of

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the presidential campaign.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama will open his North Dakota field office there on Saturday, just a week after Republican Rudy Giuliani blew into town for a quick fundraiser. (Giuliani beat Obama to the organizational punch, opening his own Fargo field office last summer, the first and until now, only other presidential candidate to do so.)

Given its tiny population and deeply red hue (voting for the Republican candidate in every election since 1968), North Dakota might seem like an odd place for a Democrat to spend time and money. But it’s part of the jackpot on Feb. 5, the so-called Super Duper Tuesday when nearly two dozen states (Minnesota among them) hold their primaries and caucuses. Steve Hildebrand, a deputy manager of the Obama campaign, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday that “a lot of states the size of North Dakota are going to voice their wishes on Feb 5 … It’s important that rural voters have the opportunity to play a real role in deciding who the party puts forward as a nominee for president.”

Although Obama’s North Dakota campaign will be headed by a former state Democratic chairman, his Chicago-based organizers initially weren’t geographically astute when they announced the opening of the Fargo office. Their web page originally superimposed “Fargo, N.D.” over a map of Pennsylvania, a flub merrily lampooned by a conservative North Dakota blogger earlier this week. By this morning, the map had been corrected. Â
 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Democrats, Presidential, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.