Gianforte stumps in Havre

With only four days left until Election Day, Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte and his running mate Phillips County Commissioner Lesley Robinson stopped by the Hill County Republican headquarters Thursday to energize local party activists

It was one of 42 stops on a statewide whistle stop tour in the final stage of the campaign.

Sen. Steve Daines, a longtime family friend and former vice president of Gianforte's business, stumped with the candidates.

Gianforte, the founder of RightNow Technologies who sold the company to Oracle for $1.5 billion, is seeking to deny incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock and Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney a second term.

He urged those present to do all they could to ensure people get out to vote next Tuesday.

"We have been standing room only everywhere we've gone. It's amazing the crowds who have come out to support us," Robinson said.

A fourth-generation rancher who lives in the Zortman area, Robinson told the crowd that she is on the ticket to offer the perspective of someone familiar with agriculture and the needs of rural Montanans.

Since launching his campaign earlier this year, Gianforte has portrayed himself as a political outsider eager to use his business expertise to bring high wage jobs to Montana and increase efficiency in state government.

"We have two sets of rules: one for the private sector and one for the public sector, and I am committed that when I am your next governor and Lesley is your next lieutenant governor we will bring accountability back to state government," he said.

He said that under Bullock's leadership, there has been nepotism and corruption in state government departments.

As a result, Gianforte said, one of his first acts should he be elected governor will be to create an office of government accountability.

Gianforte said he has been troubled by recent reports that auditors within the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services who identified inefficiencies were retaliated against and were paid a series of secret settlements.

Since then, state Sens. Bob Keenan, R-Bigfork, and Dee Brown, R-Hungry Horse, have called for an investigation.

Gianforte said that he has suggested that a hotline be established for state employee whistleblowers that would go directly to the governor's office.

"We're going to start putting state employees, good state employees on a pedestal, instead of kicking them to the curb , which is what has been happening," Gianforte said.

He also made reference to charges by Republicans including state Sen. Kris Hansen, R-Havre, who was also present at the event, that Bullock and top aides deleted emails from his term as state attorney general.

"All these emails deleted from when he was attorney general, at least when Hillary (Clinton) deleted the emails she apologized," he said.

Too many commission appointments and agency heads are doled out as political favors to career bureaucrats, Gianforte said.

"How can they sympathize with the people they serve? I think we need people in these positions who have tried to walk in the shoes of the people they serve," he said.

Gianforte has also proposed a moratorium on all new regulations on businesses. He said he wants business leaders to help identify business regulations that they think have forced them to slash jobs. Those regulations will then be reviewed under a potential Gianforte administration and, if found to be burdensome, he will encourage state lawmakers to work with him to eliminate those regulations, he said.

Gianforte said Florida Gov. Rick Scott's stewardship of his state's economy is a model for his economic vision. He said that he talked with Scott, who owns property in Montana, back in the spring. Scott, a former hospital CEO, was elected governor in 2010.

Gianforte said that when Scott was sworn in as governor, the state had lost about 800,000 jobs. Gianforte said Scott then reinvigorated his state's economy by doing away with 4,200 regulations within five years and cutting taxes 55 times. Those actions helped fuel the creation of 1 million new jobs and increased state income.

All of which was done while also putting more money into infrastructure upgrades, Gianforte said.