Say Anything Blog

Senators Dorgan and Conrad, as well as Rep. Earl Pomeroy, have sent a letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services asking for an investigation into whether or not State Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm improperly commercials paid for with federal grants to advance his political agenda.

The crux of the Democrats’ argument is:

1. Hamm starred in/narrated the commercials.
2. The commercials aired long before the sign-up date for the programs they were advertising.

The problem with these arguments?  First, Hamm is the Insurance Commissioner.  The programs advertised in the ads relate to his job.  If the Democrats don’t like a Republican Insurance Commissioner staring in government insurance public service announcements maybe they should quit asking for investigations and start working on getting Democrats elected.

Second, the ads run July - August.  The sign-up date for the Medicare program is November 15th.  August is only three months away from November.  Medicare is a complicated program, and most people need help with it long before the deadline for enrollment.  Also, election day is in the first part of November, meaning Hamm couldn’t have possibly run these ads at any time before the enrollment deadline without being accused of running them before the election.

Would the Democrats rather Hamm wait until the weeks right before the election to run these ads?  I think they’d be calling for the same investigation then as they are now.

What Conrad and his cronies are doing is a pretty common tactic with Democrat.  They make a big, nasty accusation and call for a government investigation (which takes months and months to sort out) and then when the investigation ultimately turns up nothing you don’t hear a word from them.  Because by that time they’ve done their damage by making the allegation and creating the negative headlines for their opponent.

That this is being done on behalf of Hamm’s opponent, trial lawyer Jasper Schneider who wants to become IC so he can turn North Dakota’s worker’s compensation agency back into the piggy bank it was for his family’s law firm back before Republican-backed reforms, makes the allegations particularly egregious.

This is a nasty bit of dirty politics straight out of the national Democrat playbook.