Prepared Text of Pat’s Opening Presentation to Delegates

What a great year to be a Conservative! We’ve come a long way since our election washouts in 2006 and 2008.  Those were tough years to be a Republican. In 2010 the tables have turned because we have returned to our core principles which are best summed up by Ronald Reagan when he said “Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem”.

We are the party that stands to restore our state to fiscal responsibility and constitutional principles.

And tonight we start the process of endorsing principled, conservative candidates committed to stopping the madness of government overspending.  We will endorse candidates who will do what is right.  Who will follow-through on our agenda, and lead, and stand up to government unions and big government liberals.

Tonight I ask you for your nomination as your candidate for State Auditor.

The Auditors office has an army of Researchers, Attorneys, Accountants and investment professionals.  This force can expose the excesses and redundancies in wasteful government spending.  But they need to be led by an experienced person who’s not afriad to go on the offensive.

That leader needs to be a bulldog , not a bureaucrat appointed by the legislature.  The State Auditor is the only constitutional officer uniquely designed to directly combat waste, fraud and abuse and hold government accountable.  And right now, every penny counts!

We need a State Auditor who will not only bring fiscal sanity to Minnesota, but who can help make the structural changes in government necessary for economic stability.

As your State Auditor, my office completed studies on local government aid, school superintendent compensation, the huge “hidden” costs of promised retire health care benefits and school district spending.

I’m asking for your nomination again so we can revive and extend those studies to continue to work toward exposing and fixing problems.  And we will break new ground.

Light rail has never been subject to the rigors of an investigation and audit. And under my leadership, we will get this done.

We will revamp Local Government Aid legislation. We need to stop micromanaging local governments and give them the freedom to make their own decisions.  We need to continue to privatize the audit function of the office, take an in-depth look at JOBZ legislation, and the true cost of social services in Minnesota.  We MUST hold government accountable!

We exposed many problems with public pension funds and retiree health care and got legislation passed to cap benefits and root out over payments.  But the system is still far from healthy.  We now have over $15 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. This is a problem that needs to be dealt with now.  I know the numbers, the structure, the issues and the players that need to come together to fix the problem.

When we win this seat back, we will start where we left off.  The current State Auditor hasn’t changed much of the structure I put into place.  In fact, she hasn’t done much at all – including being on time with required audits. The office is now an average of six months late on many of their audits.  That is unacceptable – and bordering on malfeasance – and is due to Rebecca Otto’s mismanagement.

Otto claims she gets no respect, and she’s right. She doesn’t. You have to earn respect.

I ask you, the delegates, the leaders of our Party, the Liberty and Tea Party Republicans, and the officials and advisors from both gubernatorial campaigns who support my candidacy and support my nomination here tonight. Let us go forward unified in principle, unified in vision and unified as the party that will return Minnesota to a state of republican, constitutional government.

I ask for your support so we can return the big-spending liberals’ worst nightmare back to the State Auditor’s office!