The Hill's Peter Savodnik reports today on the latest battleground in the privatization war and the fight for the Senate in 2006: North Dakota.

When Treasury Secretary John Snow swoops into North Dakota tomorrow to discuss the politically fraught issue of Social Security reform, he’ll meet with business leaders, students and a handful of state lawmakers.

The one person he won’t be seen with is the most powerful politician in the state and a member of Snow’s own party: Gov. John Hoeven (R), who has yet to take a public position on what should be done about Social Security.

It’s not that Hoeven is against appearing with White House officials. He flew to North Dakota on Air Force One with President Bush after Bush gave the State of the Union address. He showed up with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns at a recent Republican dinner. And he’s scheduled to be with Johanns when he returns to the state in April.

The problem with Snow, Democrats in North Dakota and Washington say, is that he’s talking about the one issue Hoeven, who is considering a challenge to Sen. Kent Conrad (D) next year, would rather not talk about: revamping the nation’s retirement program in a state filled with retirees.

“I think that sending him in here is harmful to the Republicans,” said David Strauss, chairman of the North Dakota Democratic Party, referring to Snow. “I don’t think promoting the Bush privatization scheme has much positive political impact.”

Anyone believes that Kent Conrad is an easy target is nuts. It's not that North Dakota is a particularly progressive state, because it's not. In fact, Bush's 28-point margin was one of his largest in the nation.

The more important fact of the matter is that Kent Conrad is extremely popular in his state. As Savodnik notes,

Farmers, among the state’s biggest and most powerful constituencies, have generally praised both Hoeven’s and Conrad’s efforts to protect cattle ranchers from Canadian beef and to help the state’s thousands of corn, wheat and soybean farmers, among others.

It's more fundamental than this, though. When Kent Conrad first ran for the Senate in 1986 against incumbent Republican Mark Andrews, he pledged not to run again in 1992 if the deficit was not decreased. When it wasn't, he didn't run for reelection -- even though polls showed him to be a shoo-in -- and his seat was won by Byron Dorgan. For this honesty, among other things, North Dakotans are truly endeared to Conrad. As fate would have it, longtime Democratic Senator Quentin Burdick passed away that fall of 1992, and Conrad won his seat that December, thus remaining in the body.

Conrad's large campaign chest of $883,705 (as of the end of the year), combined with the paltry state of the NRSC under Liddy Dole, leads this blogger to believe that North Dakota won't quite as easy of a win as the GOP would like.