Political Influence

[The Sicatoka]

Political influence seemed to get FSU on the fast-track to winning an appeal with the NCAA.

So where's North Dakota's congressional delegation been on this has been the question some here have asked.

Well, that's easy, sort of.

The Associated Press says Sen. Dorgan has been taking questionable money and favors from certain tribes.

Plus, toss in the fact that Sen. Dorgan didn't recuse himself from co-chairing the congressional hearings looking into the dealings of Jack Abramoff, the man who directed a tribe to make a questionable donation to Sen. Dorgan, and you can see why Sen. Dorgan may want to lay low.

http://news.google.com/news?q=Dorgan+Abram...tab=nn&oi=newsr

[petey23]

Political influence seemed to get FSU on the fast-track to winning an appeal with the NCAA.

So where's North Dakota's congressional delegation been on this has been the question some here have asked.

Well, that's easy, sort of.

The Associated Press says Sen. Dorgan has been taking questionable money and favors from certain tribes.

Plus, toss in the fact that Sen. Dorgan didn't recuse himself from co-chairing the congressional hearings looking into the dealings of Jack Abramoff, the man who directed a tribe to make a questionable donation to Sen. Dorgan, and you can see why Sen. Dorgan may want to lay low.

http://news.google.com/news?q=Dorgan+Abram...tab=nn&oi=newsr

[petey23]

Why? Dorgan has alligator blood. It doesn't matter what he does, the people of ND keep sending him back? He will go the Dem's closet where Him and Pomeroy and Conrad keep the 2 flannel shirts that they own between the 3 of them, put it on and do a couple folksy commercials to let everyone know that hey, I am one of you.

He will lie about his involvement to the end and accuse anyone who presents facts or brings up his voting record as "going negative" and the newspapers will back him up.

Remember the House bank scandal>

He lied like 5 different times on this 1 issue and it still didn't matter.

paraphrasing

"I didn't bounce any checks"

next day, evidence show that he bounced 4

"It was an oversight, blah, blah, blah, but that was it"

couple days later, paper reports it was 22

"blah, blah, blah, accounting error, we missed those, but that's it"

This went on and on until we got to the final count of 120 something?

Edited December 6, 2005 by petey23

[ScottM]

I've never been able to figure NoDak's politics. They routinely vote GOP in national and many gubernatorial elections, but usually send a host of ineffectual Dems to DC who seldom return to the state for any period of time and become "insiders". Florida was able to mount an effective, quick campaign and they got their desired results. Dorgan et al. were too busy preening behind Reid and Feinstein over Katrina or whatever else was the subject on CSPAN.

[jloos]

I've never been able to figure NoDak's politics. They routinely vote GOP in national and many gubernatorial elections, but usually send a host of ineffectual Dems to DC who seldom return to the state for any period of time and become "insiders". Florida was able to mount an effective, quick campaign and they got their desired results. Dorgan et al. were too busy preening behind Reid and Feinstein over Katrina or whatever else was the subject on CSPAN.

All three of them are very moderate, socially, and bring home a ton of federal dollars for ND. North Dakotans typically don't like to pay for anything with state taxes, but have no problem accepting pork from the feds.

Dorgan has always been close to the Indian Tribes, they likely give him a fair amount of cash. However, I think this story about him was pretty shady, I'm not so sure he did anything wrong. Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy keep getting elected because they do their jobs well. I join in the majority of ND's who voted for those three, and Bush and Hoevan in the past couple of elections. When nut-jobs like Mike Liffrig are all the Repubs can put up, it is really a no brainer. Too bad they couldn't get Schaffer to run.

I think Pomeroy is UND's best bet to support the name. He has kept pretty close ties in the state and is a big UND supporter. Dorgan may also help, but he will not want to piss off his Tribal contributors. I'm pretty sure Conrad has not visited ND in the past five years but he sends back lots of money.

[The Sicatoka]

Dorgan may also help, but he will not want to piss off his Tribal contributors.

That's the essence of my initial "lay low" comment.

[MafiaMan]

All three of them are very moderate, socially, and bring home a ton of federal dollars for ND.

Yea. And monkeys might fly outta my butt. Dorgan, Conrad, and Pomeroy are no more "moderate" than Tom Harkin or Tom Daschle.

Edited December 6, 2005 by MafiaMan

[mksioux]

To be bipartisan, Florida's governor and attorney general were also quite vocal about the issue. ND's governor and attorney general (both republicans) are supportive of the name, but have not been vocal. The Herald editorial board had to prod a position out of Hoeven. The only position I've heard about the AG is through comments made by University officials. (someone please posts links if I'm not giving them enough credit)

Some on this board at the time said North Dakota was taking the correct approach - cautious and thoughtful. I couldn't disagree stronger. Public opinion was strongly on our side and the NCAA was reeling from the bad PR. That was the time to strike. Strong words from the politicians, threatened Congressional hearings, the (very public) establishment of a litigation fund, etc. might have prompted the NCAA to cave to UND like they did to FSU. The "intellectual" left has since had time to gear up and wage a counter-offensive. The public generally has lost interest in the issue.

The smartest thing the NCAA did (which was terrible for UND) was remove FSU from the list. It would have been very interesting to see where this issue would currently be had FSU remained on the list. I have a feeling we would have lawsuits to track and perhaps we'd even be watching Congressional hearings on C-SPAN2.

Edited December 6, 2005 by mksioux

[MafiaMan]

To be bipartisan, Florida's governor and attorney general were also quite vocal about the issue. ND's governor and attorney general (both republicans) are supportive of the name, but have not been vocal. The Herald editorial board had to prod a position out of Hoeven. The only position I've heard about the AG is through comments made by University officials. (someone please posts links if I'm not giving them enough credit)

Some on this board at the time said North Dakota was taking the correct approach - cautious and thoughtful. I couldn't disagree stronger. Public opinion was strongly on our side and the NCAA was reeling from the bad PR. That was the time to strike. Strong words from the politicians, threatened Congressional hearings, the (very public) establishment of a litigation fund, etc. might have prompted the NCAA to cave to UND like they did to FSU. The "intellectual" left has since had time to gear up and wage a counter-offensive. The public generally has lost interest in the issue.

The smartest thing the NCAA did (which was terrible for UND) was remove FSU from the list. It would have been very interesting to see where this issue would currently be had FSU remained on the list. I have a feeling we would have lawsuits to track and perhaps we'd even be watching Congressional hearings on C-SPAN2.

I agree totally. Strike while the iron is hot. Instead, like so many issues, it's brought up, provokes initial outrage, then things quiet down and everyone forgets about it.

[PCM]

I think some people are forgetting one crucial aspect about what happened with Florida State University. I don't believe for a minute that the Seminoles were quickly removed from the NCAA's list of "hostile and abusive" schools because of political pressure, although it might have played a minor role.

FSU was removed because the NCAA shot itself in the the foot when it incorrectly assumed that the Oklahoma Seminole tribe was opposed to FSU's use of the Seminole nickname. If you don't believe me, listen to the tape of the Aug. 5 news conference with Myles Brand, Walter Harrison and Charlotte Westerhaus on the day the policy was announced.

After Brand and Harrison touted the NCAA's exhaustive, four-year-long study of the issue, as well as the legal precedents supporting the policy, Westerhaus declared that it didn't matter if the Florida Seminoles supported FSU because other Seminoles elsewhere didn't. The Oklahoma Seminole tribal council promptly made her a liar by passing a resolution of support for FSU by an 18-2 margin.

Oops.

So much for lengthy, exhaustive studies by learned educators with Ph.D.'s. The NCAA didn't even have the basic facts straight when it implemented the policy. It almost had to let FSU off the hook because of the negative PR storm caused by the actions of the Florida and Oklahoma Seminoles. Brand and company were only too happy to rid themselves of that mess to avoid further embarrassment. That's why they were forced to invent the "support of a namesake tribe" standard when they initially claimed that such support didn't matter.

Does anyone seriously believe that the NCAA cares about what a Republican governor and Republican members of Congress think about its policy, a policy that was obviously designed as a poke in the eye to conservatives everywhere? They probably had a good laugh at the criticism from politicians on the right. It was only when the Seminole tribes, their leaders and the media turned on the NCAA that the association beat a hasty retreat. Once FSU was off the list, Utah and Central Michigan were practically assured of successful appeals.

That being said, I do think it would help UND if North Dakota's congressional delegation was more vocal in its support of the university. Although Kupchella has implied that the delegation is helping behind the scenes, it would be nice if their constituents had at least some idea of how they were helping. It would also be nice if Conrad, Dorgan and Pomeroy showed North Dakota voters that they cared about the issue and were paying attention to it.

And, for the record, Gov. John Hoeven has publicly criticized the NCAA's policy.

North Dakota governor criticizes NCAA policy

Thursday, August 11, 2005

North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven ® criticized the NCAA's new policy on Indian mascots, calling it "an overreach."

It's a big-time overreach," Hoeven said, The Grand Forks Herald reported.

Hoeven said any decision on the University of North Dakota's "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo rests with the state Board of Higher Education. The board has already decided to keep the controversial name.