{"id":10012,"date":"2016-01-20T11:16:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T18:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=10012"},"modified":"2016-01-20T11:19:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T18:19:10","slug":"gianforte-ends-non-suspense-says-hes-running-for-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/01\/gianforte-ends-non-suspense-says-hes-running-for-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Gianforte ends non-suspense, announces run for governor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Guv\"

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

To no one’s surprise, Greg Gianforte announced Wednesday morning in Lockwood that he will seek the GOP nomination in the Montana governor’s race.<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, it\u2019s official: Greg Gianforte did not schedule a two-day, eight-city tour to announce that he wasn\u2019t running for Montana governor.<\/p>\n

Instead, as expected, he opened his tour Wednesday morning in Lockwood by declaring himself a pragmatic, job-creating candidate for the Republican nomination in the race.<\/p>\n

Most of his 20-minute speech focused on jobs, but Gianforte, a high-tech millionaire from Bozeman, touched on virtually every red-meat issue dear to Republicans.<\/p>\n

He promised to roll back regulations, cut taxes, give parents a bigger say in the education of their children, stand up to Washington, support the natural-resources industry and defend gun rights.<\/p>\n

And at the very end of his speech he promised to \u201ccampaign with compassion as big as the Big Sky.\u201d\u00a0He also said he had not yet selected a lieutenant governor candidate.<\/p>\n

The kick-off event was held at a location calculated to echo his emphasis on job creation: at Montana Peterbilt on North Frontage Road in Lockwood. Attendees walked through a parts store, into a parts warehouse and up to a concrete deck overlooking Peterbilt\u2019s big diesel shop. Gianforte\u2019s words were occasionally almost drowned out by the whir of pneumatic wrenches and the clang of metal on metal.<\/p>\n

Gianforte, the founder of RightNow Technologies in Bozeman\u2014bought for $1.8 billion by the Oracle Corp. in 2012\u2014was enthusiastically introduced by Todd Buchanan, a Billings businessman and a former member of the Montana Board of Regents.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Buchanan said he was neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but someone \u201clost in the middle of this extreme visceral partisanship\u201d of American politics. Buchanan said he has been an admirer of Gianforte for almost\u00a020 years, dating back to when his roommate at Montana State University became the first employee of RightNow Technologies.<\/p>\n

He described Gianforte as a \u201cvery skilled leader\u201d who would appoint people to state government jobs by drawing on the business world and the private sector.<\/p>\n

Gianforte, flanked by his wife, Susan, said the business they started in Bozeman is proof that \u201cwhen you combine Montana work ethic with good leadership, anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said that the jobs at RightNow were \u201ccreated by innovation and faith, not government handouts.\u201d One of his top priorities will be making sure all Montanans have to the opportunity to obtain a high-paying job, he said.<\/p>\n

Repeating a Republican mantra of recent years, Gianforte said \u201cWashington, D.C., is relentlessly attacking our natural resources and our sovereignty.\u201d He said Washington thinks a prairie chicken is more important than jobs, and he accused sitting Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock of being \u201ctoo chicken\u201d to stand up to Washington. Bullock is seeking a second term this year.<\/p>\n

\"Todd\"

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Billings businessman Todd Buchanan introduced Gianforte (in the background with his wife Susan) Wednesday morning.<\/p><\/div>\n

Gianforte also pledged, if elected, to donate his entire salary as governor to an education scholarship fund.<\/p>\n

Gianforte\u2019s four children attended Petra Academy in Bozeman, a conservative Christian school of which Gianforte has been a major financial backer and former board chairman.<\/p>\n

Gianforte was at the center of some controversy in 2014 when faculty members and students at Montana Tech in Butte circulated petitions<\/a> asking the administration to rescind invitations to Greg and Susan Gianforte, that year\u2019s commencement speakers.<\/p>\n

The petitions called the Gianfortes a poor choice because of their support for creationism and the use of public funding for private schools and their opposition to civil rights protections for lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender people.<\/p>\n

More recently, Billings Gazette editor Darrell Ehrlick touched off a continuing debate by suggesting in a column<\/a> that Gianforte needs to speak more plainly about how his \u201cextreme religious views\u201d would influence his policies as an elected official.<\/p>\n

One more thing: Gianforte is occasionally described as a billionaire, but when Last Best News did so a couple of years ago, Gianforte corrected us, saying that although RightNow Technologies sold for $1.8 billion, he owned less than a majority share of the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it\u2019s official: Greg Gianforte did not schedule a two-day, eight-city tour to announce that he wasn\u2019t running for Montana governor. Instead, as expected, he opened his tour Wednesday morning in Lockwood by declaring himself a pragmatic, job-creating candidate for the Republican nomination in the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[335,3670,334,782,805],"class_list":["post-10012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greg-gianforte","tag-oracle-corp","tag-rightnow-technologies","tag-steve-bullock","tag-todd-buchanan","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}