(In the final days of an election, there is so much information from so many races, it's difficult to stay on top of every story and understand the subtle dynamics often at play on the ground. Thankfully, we have an expansive 50-state blogosphere to match our 50-state strategy. Over the last two weeks of the campaign, we've asked leaders of the state blogospheres to provide insight into late developments and share the stories of their states in a series we're calling "Listening to the Locals." SusanG)
Greetings from the Peace Garden State! I'm Adam Blomeke, a blogger at the site, North Decoder. It's exciting for North Dakota to finally be a player in the electoral college. This has been quite a year for us, with the biggest convention we have ever seen, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both headlined the event, speaking before at least 17,000(probably closer to 20,000), Barack came again earlier this summer, and tomorrow Howard Dean is showing up to do two GOTV rallies. We're lucky to get anything usually, so this has really been unprecedented.
Democrats have been really embattled until recently around here. Our state government is the definition of a supermajority. The legislature has been dominated by Republicans to the point that until 2006, they could have overridden a veto(not that they needed to, the governor, John Hoeven is an extremely popular Republican, and short of a miracle, will handily win his reelection bid(unfortunately)). Republicans also hold all but one of the statewide offices(Roger Johnson, our Agriculture Commissioner is a Democrat). The lack of any accountability has resulted in some serious problems popping up. We have a workers compensation agency that is unaccountable to anyone other than themselves, and denies claims that are questionable. The evidence suggests that the excess money is going into kickbacks to businesses that important legislators have a stake in. Workforce Safety and Insurance is the biggest problem in the state, but there's a range of others that could be mentioned. Suffice to say, though, that much work needs to be done to return accountability to the state capitol.
Our congressional delegation is the bright spot of our state. We, like Massachusetts, only send Democrats to Washington. Since 1986, the delegation has been completely blue. Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, and Earl Pomeroy have all been faithfully serving in their seats since 1992, and continue to sail to easy re-election, mainly because the Republicans can't seem to nominate someone that has actually held elected office before. It's much easier to sit and run some office in Bismarck than it is to do the daunting work that our congressional delegation does, and it is a LOT of work. Pomeroy sits on the Ways and Means Committee in the House, and is one of a select few that have a waiver to sit on another committee, Agriculture(kinda important for North Dakota's farmers). Konrad chairs the Senate Budget Committee, and Dorgan chairs the Democratic Policy committee. Suffice to say that we have quite a bit of sway and our delegation has a lot of work that they do. It's much easier to be tax commissioner.
Right now, Democrats have many once in a generation opportunities to take back North Dakota, and we are working our hardest to take advantage of each one. In September, when the Palin bounce was registering heavily on everyone's radar, McCain took a commanding lead of the polls here, Chicago decided to pull most of the campaign's staffers out of the state to refocus their efforts on Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A number of us decided that we were going to campaign for Obama anyway. In Bismarck, the capitol, a group of seventy volunteers decided to organize under the banner of North Dakota Grassroots for Obama, or NDGO. That network of volunteers has grown to 150-175 volunteers, and yard sign orders and literature requests have been coming in from all over the state, from cities like Strasburg, ND, Population: 449. We didn't even know that Democrats existed in some of these places. Suffice to say that something is going on here in North Dakota, we're excited for the result on Tuesday. We ain't giving up until it's over though.
Races to watch:
ND-Insurance
This is the hot one, As I said, our worker's compensation bureau is unaccountable to anyone, not even the insurance Commissioner or the Governor, and while Republicans say they want to fix WSI, they have done nothing. Something like 40 bills were proffered by the Democrats, they all fell on deaf Republican ears in the legislature. The current insurance commissioner is Adam Hamm, and I'm ashamed that we have the same first name. He is an appointee by the governor because the last commissioner had to quit to become a lobbyist. Since then, Hamm has missed 8 out of the 10 meetings of the state investment board, which oversees the WSI and retirement funds for various state agencies. It is one of the big parts of his job, and he missed 80% of the meetings. He also has spent taxpayer money on Public Service Announcements that plastered his face all over TV 90 days before the election...all at taxpayer expense. It is ridiculous.
Enter Jasper Schneider, a personal injury lawyer that beat out the incumbent in the primary for her house seat only to see her run as a Republican. He won and has risen to become a leader in the legislature. He is poised to take this seat, and we're excited to have a friend on our side in the Insurance Commissioner's office.
Jasper Schneider for Insurance Commissioner
ND-Tres
This is another one sitting on the edge of our radar. The current treasurer is Kelly Schmidt, a Republican that decided to take the money sitting in the Veterans Postwar Trust Fund, and gave it to a retail broker to invest into the stock market, instead of letting the State Investment Board(same group as above, advised by some of the best financial minds in the state) handle it. The fund has lost about 20% of its value as of late. There are some other antics that we've been keeping track of as well(catalogued here). Democrats are running Mitch Vance, an experienced hand at financial issues that understands how to invest money properly. Expect a tough fight on this one.
Mitch Vance for Treasurer
Other Races
Also watch the state senate. We made significant gains in 2006 and are at the point of possibly taking this half of the legislature back. We need only to flip 3 seats. I wish the governor's race was more competitive, because our candidate, Tim Mathern has a great platform to run on and would make an excellent governor, but John Hoeven is a master of low expectations. He hasn't screwed up, he's the incumbent, and he's a Republican. That makes him governor. Short of a miracle, we will have our do-nothing, take-credit-for-everything governor back in Bismarck.
Overall, Democrats are poised to make gains, we will retain our Congressional delegation(Earl is the only one up for re-election and his opponent is as unformidable now as he was four years ago when he ran then and lost), add seats in the legislature(it's just a question of how many), and take some statewide offices(two, maybe four, who knows?). With hard work, we may even cast 3 electoral votes for a democrat for the first time since 1968! We're in the last stretch here, and are excited to see the fruits of our labor, but we aren't there yet, and we take nothing for granted.
Throw 'em an Anvil!
P.S. We called Sarah Palin and told her we want our accent back! That's totally a Fargo thing there, dontcha know.
Response from the McCain campaign:
Crickets
Read: North Decoder
Donate: ActBlue, Mitch Vance, Jasper Schneider, Tim Mathern, Daryl Splichal