North Dakota trolls for California business

From Danville-North Dakota became the laughingstock of the San Francisco Bay Area last weekend when Channel 4 news ran the following spot while simultaneously running a weather clip from last winter.

The announcer had a hard time holding himself together while he explained how the ND Governor, a year after he was elected was offering a free expensive dinner at the Mark Hopkins hotel with hopes to lure Bay Area business' to the prairie.

As if spending $200,000 on this weren't enough, Hoeven touted the state as "extra energy", "safe and unlikely to be targeted by terrorist attackers", and "homogenous" to an audience who enjoyed ethnic diversity and politely ate their free meal and left.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/11/02/MN102714.DTL

North Dakota trolls for California business

Rob Morse

North Dakota is putting the moves on California, trying to seduce our businesses away from us with dinner and a movie.

Today Gov. Gray Davis is sweet-talking CEOs to keep businesses in California, but tomorrow North Dakota's Gov. John Hoeven is taking 330 business executives out on a date to lure them to his state -- which may import a lot of snow, but exports power and is sixth in the nation at producing it.

Unlike most Davis events, dinner and a movie with Hoeven doesn't require a campaign contribution.

In contrast to California's $115.9 million economic development budget, North Dakota is spending $185,000 on its advertising campaign -- and the dinner and movie with the governor are just part of it.

No, dinner won't be at McDonald's, but at the Mark Hopkins. After dinner everyone will head across town to a completely different environment, the good old Balboa Theater for a screening of "The Wooly Boys," which was filmed in the Badlands.

The Balboa only holds 330 people, but Tracy Metzger of the North Dakota Commerce Department says, "The folks who are coming from North Dakota are willing to stand."

What a great state. According to Metzger, when the Mark Hopkins wanted to know what kind of security Gov. Hoeven needed, the response was, "We sort of take care of ourselves."

Self-reliance sounds good right now. And so does the lack of targets for terrorists. No suspension bridges in Fargo.

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