On Nov. 2, 2010, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., was hours away from the end of his political career. He didn’t know it for sure yet — he was clinging to a slim hope he might survive— but he could feel that the political tides, turning in North Dakota for decades, might finally drag him under. Before results came in, he wrote a concession speech.
That night, Pomeroy sat with his staff in a Fargo hotel r…