The poll shows Cramer winning over Gulleson by 61% to 23%, with only 15% of the electorate undecided. The data was collected May 3-8 and has a 4.3% margin of error.

The Club For Growth and FreedomWorks, two very influential, conservative PAC’s, endorsed Cramer earlier this week. However, their endorsements were not announced until after polling data had been collected.

When compared to the last independent polling conducted, in November 2011, these numbers demonstrate Cramer’s support is growing, while Gulleson’s remains flat at best, despite her increased campaign activity this year. In November, Cramer garnered 49% of the vote to Gulleson’s 24%, with the remaining undecided and a 5% margin of error.

Cramer won both of his past two statewide elections (Public Service Commissioner, current seat), with over 61% of the statewide vote.

(Source: Forum Communications, May 18, 2012)

Washington, DC – The Club for Growth PAC today announced that it is endorsing Kevin Cramer for United States Congress in North Dakota’s At-Large Congressional District:

“Kevin Cramer will fight to cut spending, repeal ObamaCare and restore fiscal sanity in Washington,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “Kevin Cramer has been a fierce advocate for free-market energy solutions and strongly supports the Keystone XL pipeline. We are confident that he will stand on principle for pro-growth policies and against the liberals in both parties. The Club for Growth PAC endorses Kevin Cramer, and we look forward to helping send him to Congress from North Dakota.”

BISMARCK, ND – In just 3 years, our national debt has increased over $5 trillion dollars, and it is on track to exceed a total of $16 trillion by the end of this year.

And while the nation’s private employment sector is shrinking, Barack Obama has added nearly 150,000 new jobs to the government’s payroll! To pay for this public-sector growth, Obama continues to borrow at unprecedented rates, ignoring the fact that America’s debt now outweighs its annual production.

I don’t need to tell you that our budget needs an immediate overhaul – and not with plans and gimmicks that put it off 10 years out, as some politicians want, but with real cuts in real spending that start today.

That’s why I’m proposing taking federal spending all the way back to 2008 levels – before “stimulus” and TARP funds – demanding agencies put an immediate freeze on hiring and submit budgets 4-5% lower every year, until finally our debt starts to shrink and our budget balances.

That’s exactly what I did in Governor Schafer’s cabinet, and the same thing can work in Washington too. At $15.5 trillion and growing, it’s time to cut up the federal credit cards and get about the business of balancing the budget for good.

Let’s not saddle our children with a huge national debt. Rather, join me in this fight, and let’s restore for them the American Dream.

Whether you vote early by mail or at your polling location on June 12th, you have an opportunity to cast your ballot for a tested and proven conservative for congress. My credentials are clear and my convictions unwavering.

If we are going to change Washington, we need a steadfast conservative fighter who knows what he believes. 

Your contribution will help run this ad and get the message of my conservative values to more people. 

True liberty is based on self-evident truths set forth at the beginning of our country in the Declaration of Independence:

“…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

From the Pilgrims’ journey to Plymouth, Massachusetts to the Founding Fathers’ Constitutional Convention, from President Lincoln’s call to national prayer to President Roosevelt’s admonitions as American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, prayer and acknowledgement of God’s protection and sovereignty have played an important role in our country’s basic formation and government.

Drawing attention to the importance to this tradition after the horrors of World War II, in 1952 President Truman signed into law an act officially designating one day each year as a National Day of Prayer (NDP), and for the past 61 years, every president has signed an annual NDP proclamation. In 1988 President Reagan signed legislation making it the first Thursday in May. Official celebrations have happened each year at the Capitol since then, until President Obama suspended Capitol celebrations in 2009.

Right now, our nation faces many challenges, some of which threaten to take away our fundamental rights and protection of freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, and it is vitally important we stand up for our rights, endowed by our Creator, and work to ensure our government is truly supporting the cause of liberty for which it was fashioned.

This cause as much as any is what compels me to run for Congress. For this year, liberty itself is on the ballot. Please join me in this endeavor. Sitting on the sidelines while someone else carries the torch is no longer an option.

Please join with me today in praying for protection of our nation’s liberty, guidance for its leaders, wisdom for its people, and freedom for all.

Thank you for your support, and may God bless you each and every day.

Nordlinger is referring to North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer’s bid for the state’s lone US House seat.

In his final installment of a three-part journal series reviewing his recent visit to North Dakota, Nordlinger insightfully shares his observations on what makes this state great. And one of the people that most impressed him was Public Service Commissioner and US House candidate Kevin Cramer:

On an upper floor of the capitol, you’ll find Kevin Cramer, a member of the Public Service Commission, and a Republican candidate for Congress. I hope he wins. He’s smart, principled, undogmatic, personable, down-to-earth — the whole ball o’ wax.

I don’t see how anybody could vote against him, including the liberal Democrats. But then, people find a way . . .

When they were young, Cramer’s dad was a close pal of Dick Armey — a North Dakotan, despite his association with Texas. He doesn’t talk like a Texan, does he? Neither does another famous Texas pol, Phil Gramm — a Georgian through and through.

I see a picture of Kevin’s dad with Armey. They look about 19. I think the picture was taken in Rugby, N.D. — right smack in the center of the United States. The Geographical Center of North America, people say.

Let me sum up Kevin Cramer, philosophically. In this op-ed piece, he quotes Jefferson: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

And at the bottom of this other piece, Cramer writes, “Free people producing products other free people need and want — this really does work.”

Amen.

Cramer has been a leader on the national scene for decades, dating back to 1991 when at age 30 he became the youngest GOP State Chairman ever. Since then, Cramer has gone on to distinguish himself as one of the country’s premier experts in energy security and public policy. In addition to his work on the PSC, Cramer serves on a number of commissions and charitable boards, including being a Trustee at the University of Mary, and also chairs the Roughrider Honor Flight Committee, which raises funds and organizes flights for WWII Veterans to visit the memorial built in their honor on the U.S. Capitol Mall in Washington, DC.

It’s people like Kevin Cramer, committed to conservative principles of independence, hard work and unwavering patriotism, that have made North Dakota what it is today.

“I have been lucky enough to take many enriching and even moving trips, wearing a reporter’s hat. North Dakota was one of the best,” Nordlinger concludes.

Nordlinger also praises Cramer’s leadership in his full article “Booming North Dakota,” appearing this month in the National Review.

BNSF officials invited Cramer to speak on the rapidly increasing volume of Bakken oil exports and the impact they are having on agricultural shipping and rail transportation capacity. Currently, the majority of North Dakota’s agricultural products are shipped out by rail, and as Bakken oil production steadily climbs, so does the pressure on railroads and pipelines to expand across North Dakota.

In 2005, the Bakken produced less than 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day, but it is now pumping in excess of 500,000 barrels a day, and the daily production rates are currently projected to continue increasing over the next ten years until leveling off at approximately 1 million barrels a day.

“I appreciated the opportunity to address the group,” stated Cramer. “North Dakota’s economy is one of the most dynamic in the nation, and I enjoy being able to work closely with the industries involved to help solve these problems. In light of failing economies in other parts of the country, I would say that rapid growth is not a bad problem to have.”

Presently, approximately 62% of Bakken oil is transported out of state via pipeline, 23% by rail, and 5% by trucking, while 10% goes to the Tesoro refinery in Mandan.

“There is a natural lag in infrastructure when you have such explosive growth as we have here in North Dakota,” Cramer explained, “but we are working hard to get pipeline projects approved and built in the most efficient manner possible, providing relief for the roads and minimizing adverse impacts on cultural and natural resources.”

In addition to the oil boom, more efficient technology and production methods have given rise to growth in agricultural exports also.

Cramer described current projections for increasing oil production over the next decade and presented graphs illustrating the need for both pipeline and rail line expansions. Currently, there are nine existing rail lines spreading across North Dakota, and five more are in the works. On the current trajectories for production and expansion, export-shipping capacity should catch up by 2014.

“It’s all about setting the stage for the state’s citizens, land owners and private industry to come together in mutually beneficial relationships,” Cramer continued, “and I am thankful for the privilege of spending almost nine years now on the PSC working to do just that.”

Calling ND’s Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer a “free-marketeer,” Nordlinger praises Cramer’s leadership approach to energy regulation as one that fosters private sector investment and economic growth while respecting the rights of land owners and businesses alike.

There tend not to be regulation wars in North Dakota: wars between government and industry, liberals and conservatives, crunchies and capitalists. (Pretty much everyone in North Dakota is a crunchy. And, increasingly, a capitalist.) People tend to solve problems together. There is a tradition of “North Dakota nice.” Kevin Cramer says, “I tell companies, if you want to get along with me, get along with the people out where you’re working. If you don’t get along with them, you don’t get along with me.”

Nordlinger further quotes Cramer, a top state leader and current US House candidate, as someone who recognizes the value of the state’s rich natural resources and the advantages of having those resources owned and managed by private individuals:

And yet, it doesn’t hurt to have a Bakken formation. Kevin Cramer, a member of the Public Service Commission, and a Republican candidate for Congress, is grinningly aware of this. He recalls an old Steve Martin skit on Saturday Night Live: You can become a millionaire and never pay taxes! How? Well, first get a million dollars. “Let’s be honest,” says Cramer: “No politician invented the Bakken.” He also points out that North Dakota is blessed with private lands, rather than state or federal ones: Almost all of the Bakken is in private hands. “So that made it easier right out of the chute,” says Cramer. Companies could invest their capital and get a return on it.

And it would not be a complete piece on the North Dakota boom without mentioning the Obama administration’s aggressive war on fossil fuels and the ever-present shadow of a power-hungry EPA, a very real threat looming constantly over the shoulder of North Dakotans’ prosperity.

While others talk about “energy independence,” Kevin Cramer prefers to talk about “energy security.” Like many another free-marketeer, he’s happy to import cheap oil from abroad. But it never hurts to have some in your own back pocket, just in case. Even in the rockin’ Bakken, oilmen are getting just a fraction of what’s there: between 6 and 8 percent. With future technology, who knows what will be possible?

But there are those who would keep the Bakken from rockin’, who would kill the goose laying the golden eggs. I ask several people what the biggest threat to them is, and they say, to a man or woman, “The EPA.” (Some say price collapse, too.) If the Environmental Protection Agency decides to ban or stifle fracking, “we’re out of business,” as Cramer says. The Obama administration is clearly no fan of oil.

With today’s soaring debt, high unemployment and crippling federal regulations, the failure of the liberal agenda – expanding federal government agencies, encouraging dependency on government programs and increasing government interference in the private sector economy – has never been clearer. If there is any hope for true national recovery, that hope lies in returning to conservative principles championed by Ronald Reagan: faith in the free market, individual risk, responsibility and reward, and common sense conservative values. Kevin Cramer knows what it takes; he’s helped make it happen – implementing those conservative principles time and again right here at home in North Dakota.

Click here to read Nordlinger’s full article in the National Review.

“It’s the first proposed pipeline that is what I call a ‘bullet’ line. It would take Bakken crude directly to the southern refinery markets in Cushing (Okla.). I don’t think that it’s any accident that the announcement that the Keystone is building the last leg (of its XL pipeline) from Cushing to the Gulf Coast just occured, and now there’s suddenly this proposal,” Cramer said in Jamestown on Tuesday.

On Monday, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Oneok Partners LP announced plans for a 1,300-mile-long pipeline. The proposed Bakken Crude Express Pipeline would cost up to $1.8 billion and would have the capacity to move 200,000 barrels of crude daily from the heart of North Dakota’s oil patch to the hub in Cushing, Okla.

Cramer said that Oneok’s Express Pipeline is only one of many such projects in the works.

“There are about three other proposals; Enbridge is one, Plains Pipeline, I think, is another one, and Butte Pipelines. They have, what I call, circuitous routes that would take Bakken oil to the Gulf Coast. This is the first, direct bullet line, and so, I think, it’s indicative of the optimism investors feel in regard to the longevity of this play and the market demand for sweet Bakken crude.”

North Dakota is the nation’s third-largest oil producer and is expected to trail only Texas in crude output within the next year. The state’s rapidly-expanding oil production is outpacing the ability to efficiently move the product to market, causing drillers to take deep price cuts. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline has the potential to move around 100,000 barrels per day from the North Dakota oil fields, but President Obama has blocked the construction of its northern portion which crosses out of Canada, citing environmental concerns.

Cramer was in Jamestown to speak at a local Rotary luncheon.

By Lynn Hopewell
Apr 10, 2012, 13:51
This article originally written and published by KSJB-AM online.