A message from Jim Fuglie
Dear Democratic-NPL Friends,
Okay, I flunked retirement. Nearly two years ago, I walked out the door of my Bismarck office and headed west, for a new life on a little "retirement farm" north of Gladstone. I am newly married to Lillian Crook, the Director of Library Services at Dickinson State University, and her two lovely teenage twin daughters, and have spent much of the last two years renovating an old farm and making a home for the four of us. But I'm restless, and the Democratic-NPL party needs an executive director, and I know how to do that, and Lillian says some time on the road would be good for me, so here I am, ready to go back to work electing Democrats. Yee-haw!
continued...
For those of you who don't remember me (that would make you either really young or really old), I did this once before, from 1981 to 1985. In that time period we won a majority in the North Dakota House for only the second (and, unfortunately the last) time in state history, elected George Sinner Governor, defeating incumbent Allen Olson, and won enough seats in the state Senate to set the stage for a majority there, for the first time in state history, in 1986.
During the 1980's we also elected Ruth Meiers as North Dakota's first female Lieutenant Governor, Nick Spaeth as Attorney General, Wayne Sanstead as Superintendent of Public Instruction, Heidi Heitkamp as Tax Commissioner, Bruce Hagen as Public Service Commissioner, Bob Hanson as State Treasurer, Jim Kusler as Secretary of State, Sarah Vogel as Commissioner of Agriculture, Earl Pomeroy as Commissioner of Insurance, Lloyd Omdahl to succeed Ruth Meiers, Byron Dorgan as our Congressman, and Quentin Burdick and Kent Conrad as our United States Senators. They were good times. We used to elect a lot more Democrats than Republicans in North Dakota. We haven't done that for a while. It's time to change that. Your State Chairman, David Strauss, your Congressional delegation and your party's executive committee have placed a lot of faith in me by bringing me back. I am excited about it. I am ready to get to work. I have set some goals.
First, I believe that, in the 2006 legislative races, it is possible to hold on to all of our state House and Senate members and win 12 of the House seats and three of the Senate seats now held by Republicans. I believe that in 2008, we will win an additional 12 seats in the House and six in the Senate, giving us a majority in both houses. So that's my first goal: to capture majorities in both houses of the North Dakota Legislature by the end of 2008.
Second, in addition to U.S. House and U.S. Senate races this year (both of which we will win), we have five constitutional offices on the statewide ballot. Our own Roger Johnson holds one of those offices. Republicans Corey Fong, Wayne Stenehjem, Al Jaeger and Tony Clark hold the other four. We have begun recruiting candidates for them, with very positive results (as Quentin Burdick used to say, in the League, the office seeks the man--or woman--not the other way around). You will be hearing some announcements on those offices very soon. I think we could win them all.
I start my job in January. I'll be Acting Executive Director for a month or so until the Policy Committee meets and (hopefully) approves my appointment Just so you know: I've had a sign on my desk at every job I've had that says "A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world" and I'll be putting that sign back up. I'll be at the Kennedy Center part-time, at home part-time, and on the road much of the time, traveling the state working on fundraising and organization. I'll have an e-mail address (jim@kkcltd.com) and carry a cell phone for phone calls (701) 220-3492. It has voice mail, so leave a message if I don't answer. It probably means I'm working from home, the little farm in the big valley north of Gladstone that does not have cell phone service, but which has a wonderful hill I can climb every day to get messages. That's it for today. I will write more later, on a regular basis. I will work with our Party's Communications Director, Rick Gion, to keep these e-newsletters friendly, informative, and interesting. Rick will continue to send out a daily briefing of state and national political news. And we encourage you to submit news and commentary of your own to this newsletter. We want to hear what other Democrats and NPL'ers around the state are doing. I look forward to seeing you down the road.
Jim