My great-grandfather came to Wyoming to work in the coal mines. He came to Wyoming looking for a better life. Through hard work, honesty, integrity and self-reliance, Wyoming gave him that opportunity.
Wyoming has likewise given me tremendous opportunities. I have been lucky enough to spend a lifetime as a small business owner, running and operating our family ranch together with my dad and my brother. Like all small business owners, it has not always been easy to meet a payroll, provide insurance, and just make ends meet. However, by relying on the same values as my great grandfather—hard work, integrity, honesty and self reliance, our family has been able to maintain and operate our family business here in Wyoming for over 100 years.
As I look at my grandchildren, I am grateful that they have the opportunity if they choose to live in Wyoming. I am grateful that they can be raised in a place where they can enjoy the beauties of Mother Nature and Wyoming’s open spaces, to live in communities that care about them and are invested in their success.
Whether we have been in Wyoming for four generations or four weeks, it is those same values, those same opportunities that draw us here, that keep us here and that make Wyoming great.
I love Wyoming. I believe in Wyoming. I believe that together we can build a Wyoming with a strong economy and good jobs, provide for a fiscally sound and responsible state government and a Wyoming that respects and honors our God given liberties—in short, the Wyoming we want for our children and grandchildren.
That is the reason why I am standing before you today and declaring my candidacy for the office of Governor of the great state of Wyoming.
Patty and I and our family have not made this decision lightly. We know that we cannot take the goodness of Wyoming for granted. We cannot remain static or allow ourselves to fall into a sense of complacency. Our way of life, our opportunities and so many of the things that we love about Wyoming are being challenged today.
Wyoming faces many challenges. Revenues are down and our economy is sluggish. Unemployment continues to inch upward. Our state budget has nearly tripled in the last seven years, and there are even greater demands on the cities, towns and counties in our state for more services and revenue.
I believe that times of challenges are also times of great opportunities. We have the opportunity to return to many of the principles of good government that our founding fathers recognized. We have the opportunity to remind ourselves that government cannot and should not try to solve all of the ills of society and our economy. We will demonstrate to the rest of the country that smaller, more efficient and properly restrained government is the best protector of our economy, society and our liberties.
My highest priority as your governor will be to maintain an environment where it is easy to do business in Wyoming so that we can provide the conditions that will encourage job creation and steady economic growth. Together, we will use state government to create an environment where entrepreneurs decide to take risks in doing business in Wyoming, where businesses choose to invest in their own success. We can do this by keeping taxes low, keeping spending low and freeing businesses from outdated or unnecessary regulations and by focusing on helping the private sector create competition.
Unfortunately, many of Wyoming’s challenges come from outside Wyoming. I believe that the greatest threat facing Wyoming today, and quite frankly the country we all love is coming from Washington DC. The Obama administration and the Congress have adopted policies that punish us for producing traditional energy resources that have and will continue to fuel the nation’s economy. The Obama administration continues to add to the many job-killing regulations and federal mandates that will further burden Wyoming’s energy sector.
President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have embarked on a path of unprecedented deficit spending that threatens the financial future of all of our citizens. With each passing month, we learn of a new federal program concocted by a liberal President and his accomplices in Congress that will add to our mounting national debt, stifle freedom and make it even harder for states to balance their budgets. Meanwhile, the federal government continues to create more power for itself and trample the rights granted to Wyoming in the Constitution.
We need a governor who will fight for the Constitution, who will join with other governors and fight the infringement of the rights of the states. We need a governor who understands the meaning of the 10th amendment and who will fight for it with his whole heart.
I will be that governor!
With all the challenges, Wyoming needs a governor with the experience, leadership and commitment to secure Wyoming’s legacy for future generations from the threats we face from our own federal government, to ensure that Wyoming has a strong and vibrant economy, and that Wyoming honors and protects our individual freedoms and liberties.
I will be that governor!
We need a governor with experience in the private sector and who understand the importance of small business in this state. I am a fourth generation small businessman. I understand that small business is the back bone of our economy.
We need a governor with extensive experience in the legislative branch. We need a governor who understands how to work with legislators to achieve meaningful change for the people of Wyoming. I served in the legislature for 16 years. I understand the legislative process.
We need a governor who understands the role of the executive branch. I spent 8 years heading a state agency. I know state government and understand that state employees are the most important asset that state government has to fulfill its role.
With over 40 years experience in the private sector, 16 years in the legislature and 8 years as the Director of the Department of Agriculture, I bring the needed experience to the office of Governor.
You deserve a leader who says what he means and does what he says he will do.
I am that leader!
We need a leader who will guard our families and our culture from those demean their importance or would redefine their very meaning. We need a leader who will protect traditional family values, understands the sanctity of marriage and who will protect the sanctity of life and has the record to prove it.
I am committed to doing that. I will be that governor.
I have a deep love for the founding fathers of this country. These men were uncommon heroes. They had the courage to break away from the mother land; write a Declaration of Independence that, for the first time in recorded history, stated that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Our founding fathers had the audacity to take on the greatest military power in the world and fight a Revolutionary War. They had no chance of winning that war, but they did. With the guiding hand of the Lord, they prevailed and won our freedom.
They then wrote the greatest document in the history of government when they penned the Constitution. These were great men, but more than that, they were men who were willing to pay the ultimate price so that we might enjoy the freedoms and liberty that we have in this great country. I am so grateful for the heritage that they left us and the courage that they displayed in the face of overwhelming odds.
Today, we see great threats to freedoms. One of the greatest threats is the apathy of our nation’s citizens toward preserving our liberties. Public service is demeaned. Patriotism is not politically correct. We have lost the intense passion that our founding fathers held for the principles of the Constitution. I believe we are at a crossroads of our history. Thirty years from now I want to be able to look my children and my grandchildren in the eye and say, “we made a difference.”
I am asking you to join us today, in the spirit of our strongest traditions, to recommit to the values that made this country the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Please join with us as we build a Wyoming that is better than the one that we inherited.
I need your help. I need your energy, I need your ideas. It will require strength and it will require courage. I can not do it without you.
As Patty and I embark on this journey, we are so humbled and honored by the enthusiasm and support that we have received from the people all across Wyoming. We have been in every county, and have talked to thousands of people. We have already traveled thousands of miles and shaken more hands that we can count. We are dedicated to this campaign, and will fight for the nomination with every ounce of energy that we have.
Today, I count myself as the most optimistic man in Wyoming. I believe that by doing just a few things—by making state government more efficient so that it works better and is more responsive to the people, by making it easier to do business in Wyoming, and by defending our constitutional rights, we can build a Wyoming where our children and grandchildren are bequeathed the same blessings of this great state. We can continue the great legacy that we call Wyoming.
In the final moments of the debate in Philadelphia before the final vote to adopt the Declaration of Independence, the great John Adams arose and said this,”I believe that the hour has come. My whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to here stake upon it. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God, it shall by my dying sentiment. Independence now and independence forever.”
I do not pretend to be as great a man as John Adams. But I do pledge to you today that the hour has come. My whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to pledge to Wyoming. Together we can make a difference. We must do all that we can to preserve the noble heritage that has been left to us by our founding fathers. At the end of the day, I want to be able to look my children and grandchildren in the eye and say, we did it, we made a difference.
Thank you for joining us and God bless the great state of Wyoming.
