Say Anything Blog

Its been news for a while, but the Heritage Center is launching a 60-million-dollar expansion project. Sounds like great news, right? Sure, if private donors are willing to fund it. Unfortunately, the Heritage Center is only anticipating 12 million from private donors, and it wants to use 36 million dollars from the state. Its already secured 1.5 million by a vote in the 2007 session. My position on this is that quite frankly, it seems that no one is ever at the Heritage Center. Sure, its a great place to learn about North Dakota history, but it usually sits empty, and what sort of return do we as North Dakota citizens get out of this? Why should we constantly pump millions upon millions of tax payer dollars into this museum? The answer is - we shouldn't. Instead, the Heritage Center needs to look at ways to do a more modest expansion using private donations. They shouldn't be expecting the legislature to give them a blank check.

We built the Heritage Center with state funds back in the 1980s, and from there on out, private dollars should have been used to fund it. Instead, we've seen millions of state dollars thrown at it, and now they are requesting 36 million more. Here is a list of the 56 representatives who supported the bill. Let them know that the Heritage Center needs to find a way to fund itself using private donors.

Glenn Beck is trying to decide which candidate to support, so he invited Mike Huckabee on to his show for a 40-minute interview. All the videos are posted on YouTube as well as here on Mike’s website. If you don’t support Huckabee yet, watch these videos and you will most likely be instantly converted. Huckabee is the strongest conservative in the race by far. He wants to secure the border, fight the war on terror, rid us of the IRS, and he is even a strong supporter of federalism as is Fred Thompson. Huckabee, unlike Thompson, is standing firm on real issues. Hate to deal such a big blow to Fred, but Huckabee is throwing his full support for the FairTax out to the voters, while all the other candidates are waiting to see which way the wind blows. He’s not afraid to express his views his support of a real and solid plan to fix our tax system.

We still have 13 months to go before the 2008 election, yet Earl Pomeroy has already stockpiled a staggering $1,057,433 for his re-election bid. Where is all of this money coming from, you might ask? Well, of the $921,000 that he has raised this year, nearly 80% of it has come from out of state special interest groups. Only $189,015 has been raised from individuals, and only $4,900 of that has come from North Dakota individuals. In other words, 99.5% of Pomeroy’s cash so far has come from out of state. To be fair, that percentage will decrease as more North Dakotans get involved in the election, but it won’t decrease dramatically. But when a candidate is taking in 99.5% of his contributions from interest groups, you have to wonder who’s interests he is really representing. How are the other members of our delegation faring? Conrad is looking pretty content with his stockpile of nearly $2 Million, as is Dorgan with his $1 Million. Conrad is five years away from re-election, Dorgan is three away. These incumbents will be incredibly difficult to defeat, but it can be done, and every North Dakotan needs to realize that.

The ND Dems have been trying to pick new Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm apart lately. They now seem to be upset about the fact that Hamm organized Presiden’t Bush’s visit to Fargo to promote his social security plan in 2005. I don’t see why they have a problem with this; its as if they are shocked that Republican governor John Hoeven’s appointee is a Republican. They used this to ramble on about how Bush’s social security plan was “unsound” and that the whole event was a “Republican circus.” They gave a link to an article on Byron Dorgan’s criticism of the social security plan as their reason for calling it “unsound.” The article is amusing because it is funny to watch someone defend the Government’s taking of my income, and giving it back to me (or not giving it back to me) in 40 years. Dorgan says:

“He’s using bait and switch tactics, claiming Social Security is in trouble and then saying money should go to private accounts.”

He talks about it as if money going into private accounts is a bad thing, as if earning interest on our money is something that should be avoided. Did Dorgan propose a plan to fix the system? No. He was just adamant that the government maintain complete control of the social security money.

View the blog at http://mattsconservativecorner.blogspot.com/

Hillary Clinton now claims that Bush is “at war with science”. Hold on, doesn’t that sound like a ”Bumper Sticker” slogan? Nevermind, the “war on terror” is a bumper sticker slogan, but according to Clinton, a “war on science” is a valid argument. Of course, she’s referring to Bush’s opposition to embryonic stem cell research. Now, as most scientists not reading from the Democrat’s talking point book would agree, it is adult stem cells, not embryonic ones, that have proven most effective in curing disease. Here is a quote from the 21st Century Science & Technology Magazine:

Embryonic stem cells are taken from a developing embryo at the blastocyst stage, destroying the embryo, a developing human life. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are found in all tissues of the growing human being and, according to latest reports, also have the potential to transform themselves into practically all other cell types, or revert to being stem cells with greater reproductive capacity. Embryonic stem cells have not yet been used for even one therapy, while adult stem cells have already been successfully used in numerous patients, including for cardiac infarction (death of some of the heart tissue).

Of course, Democrats don’t want you to know this. They want you to believe that embryonic stem cell research is this incredible cure-all-diseases miracle, even though it is actually a somewhat failed and limited area of research. Why not just use adult stem cells, which are more effective, and don’t involve the destruction of a human embryo. Everybody wins with this scenario...except the Democrats. They love pushing embryonic research because they can make it seem as if Republicans are trying to “stop science”, or “go to war with it”. You don’t see Republicans claiming that Democrats are “at war with babies”, do you?

Former congressional candidate Duane Sand announced today that he has formed an exploratory committee to feel out a possible run against Earl Pomeroy for Congress next year. Sand previously ran for Senate in 2000 and for Congress in 2004. I’m excited to see Sand considering a run once again. Given his service to our country, his name recognition, and his outstanding conservative positions, I think that he will appeal to lots of North Dakotans and I believe that he can win it. We’ve seen General David Petraeus ridiculed and our troops demoralized by liberal organizations like MoveOn.org. I think that North Dakota citizens will refuse to re-elect someone like Pomeroy who refuses to denounce such attacks, and more importantly, refuses to support our mission in Iraq. There is no doubt that Pomeroy will dodge questions about Iraq with elongated responses and vagueness, but eventually it will be clear that he is just another Democrat clinging to defeat.

It won’t be easy, though. The campaign is really going to have to be a very organized effort, and lots of money is going to be needed to match Pomeroy’s already massive war chest.

Being a student at a high school in Bismarck, I get a little insight into how Bismarck Public Schools spends its money. In addition to implementing a John Edwards-esque food restriction program last year, the school district also apparently has too much money on their hands, so they decided to pay this guy $10,000 to show off his dance moves to all teens in the city of Bismarck. Now, to be fair, the guy did the whole motivational speaker thing by telling us his life story, but did we really need to bring in an internationally known speaker who gets a five figure salary in 10 hours? I can name many speakers here in Bismarck who could have done a better job and for about 1/4 of the price. Does it really matter whether a national or a local speaker puts half the city’s teens to sleep? Not really. Its obvious, though, that the school district really wasn’t looking to save any money. Maybe the teachers just wanted to see a 40 year old man shaking his rear end in front of 1,000 students?

As was expected, Mitt Romney won the straw poll. That wasn’t really big news as he was the only top tier candidate in the race. The big news is that Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took second place with 18 percent. This means a lot for the Huckabee campaign; they have showed that they Huckabee is the top second-tier candidate, and they are now expecting him to be among the front runners because of this achievement. Mike Huckabee’s main rival Sam Brownback came in third with 15 percent, and Tom Tancredo took 4th with a little of 13 percent. Tommy Thompson, who came in 6th, will likely announce his decision to drop out of the race shortly. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Duncan Hunter dropped out after taking 9th place and only receiving 174 votes (a little over 1 percent). Businessman John Cox, often referred to as a third-tier candidate, only mustered 41 votes. Cox probably won’t drop out though, as he had this to say:

“In the straw poll, I think my chances are pretty bad. I’m probably going to be in the bottom somewhere,” said candidate John Cox. Cox said a less-than-stellar showing at the straw poll does not mean he will drop out. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” Cox said.

Huckabee is my favorite in the race so far, so I hope the media really picks up on him after this news. Here’s something else that is interesting; Huckabee spent only $58 per vote. His rival Sam Brownback, who was 3 percentage points behind him, spent almost 3 times that amount ($148). Mitt Romney has not yet announced his spending, but experts have said that he spent anywhere from $400 to $1000 per vote. Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, and even 9th place finisher Duncan Hunter raised more money than Huckabee in the first half of the year, but Huckabee still came out on top among them. It really looks like Huckabee’s message is resonating with the people and it shows that he really doesn’t need to outspend his rivals to do good in the polls.

Our North Dakota State Treasurer, Kelly Schmidt, who has been revitalizing the Treasurer’s office ever since her election in 2004, is now on the cover of Inspire, a Bismarck women’s magazine. In the four page cover story, Schmidt discusses her commitment to her family and her love for the state of North Dakota. You can read the entire article here. Its nice to see Schmidt get some credit for all the hard work she has been doing over the past 2 years; she will likely run for re-election in 2008, but I think that the Governor’s office is calling her name after 2012. She has an amazing work ethic and I’m glad that she is getting some recognition. After 20 years of Democrats in the Treasurer’s office, Schmidt came in with new ideas and completely turned the office from an inefficient one into a highly productive and proactive one. Here’s one particularly impressive accomplishment of Schmidt’s:

She cites a project called BidND as a major accomplishment of her team. After discovering that millions of North Dakota dollars were being invested outside of the state, her staff brought those dollars home and invested them in small town banks on a bid process. “By investing millions of dollars in over 60 North Dakota communities, we’ve been able to garner additional interest income for the state,” explains Kelly. Through this initiative and effective cash management, interest income to the state’s general fund is in excess of 500 percent of the current legislative forecast.

View my full blog here.

A large and consistent supply of out of state cash is what keeps Earl Pomeroy going year after year; unfortunately, this is not a well-known fact among North Dakotans. While not well known, it is certainly true that Earl received about 90 percent of his contributions from out of state and special interest groups in the last election. We have already discussed how Earl is a supporter of defeat in Iraq, and how he uses disaster aid for farmers to gain the media spotlight. Its time to talk about why such a liberal politician has been continuously occupying the lone House seat of one of the nation’s most conservative states since 1992.

He has not been re-elected because his opponents were poor in quality. Kevin Cramer, Matt Mechtel, Rick Clayburgh, and Duane Sand were all great candidates just to name a few. It is because Earl receives millions in out of state dollars, and opponents are left with a mountain of challenges to overcome. Let’s take 2006’s race with Republican Matt Mecthel as challenger for example. First, Mechtel had to try and match or come close to Earl’s out of state cash reserves. This was almost impossible since major donors were scared away by Earl’s massive cash pile. This left Mechtel struggling to first introduce himself to North Dakotans (since he began with zero name recognition). This task was also nearly impossible because North Dakota’s news media refuses to give both candidates the coverage necessary. This leaves Mechtel working from sun-up to sun-down attending parades, going door to door, and trying to form a grassroots movement. Meanwhile, Earl gets to sit back and relax by his big pile of east and west coast cash. Imagine starting a campaign where your opponent has millions in out of state dollars already in the bank from the start and has been a recognizable name for North Dakotans for 14 years. And imagine yourself as a true North Dakotan with great ideas and a vision for the state, but with no money, and no name recognition. This was the campaign Mechtel had to run; he did a superb job with what he had, but came nowhere near defeating the giant that is Earl Pomeroy.

This is the same campaign that someone else will have to run in 2008 against Earl. I hope that one of our 11 Republican statewide officials, particularly John Hoeven, will step up to the plate to prove that someone with the right idea for our state can represent us in the United States Congress once again.

It’s time for the part two in our ongoing series on Exposing Earl Pomeroy. In the last part, I discussed how Earl has used farming subsidies to generate good press, gain more control over the farmers, and eventually to get re-elected year after year by claiming to be the great savior of the farmers. Today, it’s time to discuss how Earl Pomeroy is not only an unpatriotic individual who works hard to decrease the morale of our troops in the pursuit of defeat, but also how he tries to hide it. As highlighted by a blogger here, Earl Pomeroy voted against this bill which would have boosted the morale of our troops by declaring that the United States will be victorious in the War on Terror. But of course, why would a leftist like Earl want to support our troops anyway? It would be one thing if he would admit that he doesn’t support them, so at least voters wouldn’t be conned into thinking that they’re voting for a patriot. However, Earl tries to cover it up on his website with this nifty link.



In the screenshot from Earl’s website above, you can clearly see that Earl wants you to think that “supporting our troops” is an “issue” for him, but it obviously isn’t. Let’s click the link to find out exactly how Earl will make us think that he supports the troops.



As you can see, Earl wants you to think that he is supporting the troops by providing a photo of himself eating lunch amongst them. What he doesn’t want you to know that he has joined all of the other Democrats in trying to decrease their morale. Yes, the same Democrats whose leader declares things like “The War is Lost”. Maybe Earl should have brought that up as a talking point at the dinner table..."being amongst you soldiers here today, I get the feeling that the war is lost!”. I also find funny the link that he provides: “How to support our troops”. I think that Earl is the only one who needs to click on that link; he could learn something from it.

The fact that Earl Pomeroy does not support our troops and tries to con his voters into thinking that he does is just one more reason why Earl Pomeroy has to go. Tell your friends, family, and co-workers that the Exiting of Earl is Essential in 2008.

A lot of people have been asking me what seats in North Dakota will be on the ballot in 2008. There’s been a lot of confusion lately too, since in 2004, 4 of our 8 constitutional officers (except Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and our 3 PSCs), ran for two year terms (SOS Al Jaeger, Att. Gen. Wayne Stenehjem, Ag Comm Roger Johnson, and Tax Commissioner Cory Fong all sought re-election again in 2006). This was done so that those 8 offices could be split into two different elections. Instead of electing Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and commissioners (Ag, Tax, and Insurance) all in one year, 4 will be elected in even-numbered years.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Poolman is up for re-election. I am not sure whether or not Poolman will seek a third term (he was elected in 2000), but I hope that he will. Poolman has done a tremendous job in the Insurance Department, and I would like to see him continue his work.

Our Auditor for the past 10 years, Bob Peterson, is also up for re-election. Although I haven’t spoken with him, I am quite confident that Peterson will seek re-election. His father served for 24 years in the office, and I believe (and am glad) that he will do the same.

The only female Public Service Commissioner in our state’s history, Susan Wefald, is up for re-election in 2008. Wefald has been in the PSC since 2003, and serves alongside Kevin Cramer and Tony Clark. I see no reason why Wefald should not run for re-election, but since she recently celebrated her 60th birthday, she may have retirement on her list. We have yet to see what Wefald will do in 2008.

Lastly, and in this case least, we have 72-year-old Wayne Sanstead, who has served as the Superintendent of Public Instruction since 1985. It’s time for Ol’ Wayne to go; we don’t need a white-haired Democrat in this position, we need a Republican with a fresh approach to education. I also noticed the other day that Wayne claims to have received the most votes of any public official in North Dakota’s history. While true, one should note that he was unopposed in the race that he cites.

All five of these statewide races will be taking shape in the next two to three months. I will provide frequent updates on the progress on each one.

A lot of people have been asking me what seats in North Dakota will be on the ballot in 2008. There’s been a lot of confusion lately too, since in 2004, 4 of our 8 constitutional officers (except Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and our 3 PSCs), ran for two year terms (SOS Al Jaeger, Att. Gen. Wayne Stenehjem, Ag Comm Roger Johnson, and Tax Commissioner Cory Fong all sought re-election again in 2006). This was done so that those 8 offices could be split into two different elections. Instead of electing Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and commissioners (Ag, Tax, and Insurance) all in one year, 4 will be elected in even-numbered years.

I suppose that this decision was made so that voters homework could be split up a little more evenly. While it is a lot to ask of a voter to elect all 8 officials in one year, I honestly don’t think having them split up will make anyone look into the candidates any more than they normally would.

This year, we of course have the Presidential Race, the Governor’s race, and the Congressional race to deal with. I’ve discussed all three of these races already, so now I will cover the four constitutional officers (plus one PSC) that are up for re-election. Treasurer Kelly Schmidt, Insurance Commissioner Jim Poolman, Auditor Bob Peterson, SPI Wayne Sanstead (Democrat), and Public Service Commissioner Susan Wefald.

First, State Treasurer Kelly Schmidt is seeking re-election to her second term in 2008. Since being elected in 2004, Schmidt has immensely improved the function and quality of the Treasurer’s office. Previous Treasurer, Democrat Kathi Gilmore, made a mess of the office; such a mess that the Legislative Assembly twice tried to eliminate the position. Now, Schmidt has cleaned house, and the Office of the State Treasurer is one of the most efficient in the state. It is possible that Schmidt has her eyes on the Governor’s office, but she will most likely seek a second term as Treasurer before she moves up.

Insurance Commissioner, PSC, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Auditor will be featured in upcoming installments.

For the full blog, go to
http://mattsconservativecorner.blogspot.com/

Earl Pomeroy is up for re-election in 2008. Earl has been serving as our only representative in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993, except that sitting, rather than serving is a better way to describe his tenure. In this, the first part of my ‘Earl Exposed’ series, I will discuss how Earl Pomeroy has been sitting in our only U.S. House seat for nearly 15 years while accomplishing very little for North Dakota, and why the Exiting of Earl is Essential in 2008.

When the average North Dakotan is asked what Earl Pomeroy (as well as Conrad and Dorgan) have done for our state, their response typically concerns disaster aid for our farmers. I respect our farmers, and disaster aid is OK every now and then, but billions of dollars in handouts every single year just isn’t smart. Earl, however, wants to constantly give disaster aid left and right, to the point where farmers receive tons of it every year. Why? Because Earl knows that the only thing getting him re-elected year after year is his “disaster aid for our farmers”; he gets to play the farmer hero every year by running around and handing out bags of your tax dollars. He gets a ton of media coverage every year when he is sponsoring the latest farm bill; area newspapers and TV stations alike just eat it up. Go and ask a farmer who’s been at it since the 1940s and ask him if he received disaster aid every year during that time. He will tell you no, but Earl Pomeroy will tell you that whenever the weather gets slightly abnormal, we need to give the farmers disaster aid.

View the complete blog at

http://mattsconservativecorner.blogspot.com/