Someone’s going to school on Gov. Walker’s putt

If you think Alaska has been hit hard by tanking oil prices, you should take a look at North Dakota.

And if you think Alaskan legislators have spent like drunken sailors as though big oil revenues were here to stay, yours have got nothing on North Dakota’s.

For all the jobs and tax revenue lost up here, at least it’s still Alaska — majestic scenery, tourism that doesn’t quit, a fishing industry and so much more. North Dakota has a goodly amount of agriculture with soybeans and sugar beets leading the way, but it’s in no way the kind of place that lures people on its own the way Alaska does. Nobody dreams of North Dakota in a good or romantic way. All North Dakota has that makes it special is the shale oil boom and its role in the 21st Century rebirth of the American Dream.

Take away the oil and you take away its self-esteem.

It was from Williston, the belly of the boom, that I drove from nearly three weeks ago. Not long before I left, North Dakota held its June Primary, and in the main event came an upset nobody saw coming, but could be a bellwether for red states across the country.

In February, I attended the District 1 Republican Nominating Convention in Williston. Candidates, or their surrogates, for each state office had five minutes to make their case. Beth, the wife of the current attorney general and front-runner for governor Wayne Stenehjem, reminded the GOP faithful in attendance — “you all know Wayne,” who spent his childhood in Williston. Repeating that phrase and emphasizing the syllable ‘know’ she argued for his steadfast conservative values, his trustworthiness and his competence.

Standing under a District 1 Republican party banner with one logo depicting an oil well driving into the ground, next to one of an elephant dipping its trunk into a pool of water, as though the two acts were fundamentally the same thing, Beth Stenehjem might as well dropped the mic and walked off the stage, her point made.

Doug Burgum, meanwhile, sent his college roommate and adviser to the podium to vouch for him. Though most everyone present knew Robert Harms as a lawyer and the one-time head of the North Dakota Republican Party, the shaggy hair covering his face created the optics of an unrepentant hippie.

As expected, Stenehjem swept to the district nomination and the North Dakota Republican Party nomination in April. He appeared to be a sure bet to win the Republican Primary just two months down the road.

Burgum was the veritable Steve Jobs of North Dakota. He sold his Fargo-based software startup company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion, and was now turning his attention to the turbulent economic and political situation facing his home state.

A mile-a-minute thinker, and even faster talker, Burgum made the rounds with little time to spare, running on the same, tired trope that if you ran government like a business, everything would be so much more efficient.

What was odd about Burgum’s campaign for the Republican nomination was that he ran completely as a Democrat, right down to his campaign sign colors, which were blue and brown — none of the red you’d see from your typical elephant. Even his campaign video featured a shot of Earth from space, as though he were vying for the Sierra Club’s endorsement, not that of North Dakota farmers and oilmen.

Presumably liberal on social issues, he flipped flop relatively little on those and managed to lump the AG in with the state legislature — virtually all Republicans, who’d racked up budget deficits that would make Alaska’s legislature blush — as an ‘old boys network’ that needed the heave-ho.

On primary night, the whole state was stunned. Burgum crushed Stenehjem by 20 points to move on to the general election to face a Democratic challenger in November, who will be of no threat.

How did Doug Burgum do it? How did he run as a Republican without running as a Republican at all?

The better question for Republicans in red states like Alaska is when is the next Doug Burgum coming for them?

If you live in a largely rural red state controlled by so-called ‘conservatives’ who’ve behaved irresponsibly in times of plenty and left gaping budget shortfalls in times of famine, where are you supposed to turn?

Democrats?

I’ll give you a moment to laugh.

Republicans who insist they’re the real conservatives, unlike the ‘fake’ Republicans who say the exact same things they do?

They’ve proven themselves utterly useless.

Gov. Walker has all but committed political suicide with his billions of dollars of cuts in vetoes, which include a halving of every Alaskan’s annual dividend check. But by switching from Republican to Independent along his path as governor, Walker put himself in position to be able to make the case for wildly unpopular, but probably necessary changes.

Right now, someone somewhere out here in the Last Frontier, is going to school on Walker’s putt. Someday soon, this person will figure out how to run to the left of the Republican parapet without changing party affiliation, and without anyone being the wiser.