Gubernatorial candidate Gianforte visits Libby

Montana gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte stopped in Libby Wednesday afternoon for two campaign events, a sparsely-attended public event at Libby City Hall and a reportedly larger private event at the Venture Inn.

Gianforte hammered Montana’s current governor, Steve Bullock, for failures in leadership he said contribute to the economic woes of Montana.

“There’s a bubble in Helena, and that bubble needs to be popped,” he said. “There’s a sunshine pump there, talking about low unemployment, prosperity and job creation. This is coming out of the governor’s office. But you get out into Montana and people are hurting.”

Gianforte said businesses are forced to be accurate and accountable, under threat of imprisonment. He said he and one of his former executives used to joke that if they screwed up their financial reports, required every 90 days, they’d have side-by-side prison cells, but such accountabilty doesn’t exist in government.

“Our current governor lost a billion dollars off the balance sheet last year for the state, and there were 125 accounting errors and they were passed off as a clerical error,” he said. “Well, certainly nobody went to jail. Nobody lost their job. Nobody even got reprimanded. It’s complete incompetence. We need to bring some accountability to Helena.”

Gianforte said the key to Montana’s future is to build a strong private sector-based economy and eliminate the state’s dependence upon federal funding. To do that, he said, the state needs to focus its education programs on area-specific endeavors, teaching students the skills they need to work jobs in their communities.

The candidate side-stepped a question about his family foundation’s donation to anti-gay hate groups, characterizing the question as a “rabbit trail.” He did, however, express his commitment to a state workplace free of discrimination.

“Discrimination is wrong,” he said. “When we ran our business in Bozeman we hired people based on their ability and they were promoted based on their contributions to the business. I’d run the state exactly the same way.”

He said he disagreed with Gov. Bullock’s executive order on non-discrimination because of the unilateral method of its issuance, but completely agreed with the sentiment behind it.

Following the public event, Gianforte proceeded to the Venture Inn in Libby for a private event.