Republican Gubernatorial Hopefuls Jensen/Birk Host Q&A In Ottertail

Matt Birk (left) and Dr. Scott Jensen host a Q&A at Thumper Pond in Ottertail on May 1, 2022. (Photo: Zeke Fuhrman)

OTTERTAIL, MN (KDLM) – With two weeks until the GOP State Convention, Republican hopefuls for the party’s nomination to challenge DFLer Tim Walz for Minnesota Governor in November have been hitting the campaign trail.

Former state senator Dr. Scott Jensen and running mate Matt Birk held a nearly two-hour Q & A at Thumper Pond in Ottertail on Sunday. Among popular topics from the audience: farm subsidies and taxes, education, clean energy, the budget surplus, technology and broadband coverage, and the state’s COVID-19 response.

“Covid showed us government overreach,” said Birk. “(Walz) locked us down. He closed our churches, closed our schools, closed small businesses…I couldn’t go to my neighborhood hardware store but I could go six blocks further to Home Depot…the government can go really far into our lives. He locked down the entire state. I haven’t spent a lot of time in this neck of the woods, but it looks a lot different than the Twin Cities. He took the blanket uniform approach to the entire state when it came to how he was going to deal with COVID.”

Dr. Scott Jensen addresses the crowd at a Q&A at Thumper Pond in Ottertail on May 1, 2022

“Minnesota is on an unsustainable path. We don’t need to berate Tim Walz…we certainly could. Matt and I are daring to go against the political machine. And not just the Democratic political machine. It’s also the Republican elite. We get it. People don’t respond well when you don’t bend down and kiss the ring. If they pull a lever, you’re supposed to do this. We’re not gonna do that. This time around, it’s gotta be ‘We The People’.”

Jensen, who served in the Minnesota Senate from 2017-2021, also touched on Minnesota’s agriculture community.

“Right now, if you look at what’s happening in the community of agriculture, there has been nothing good for farmers for decades. Start at the top: the government has been a fickle partner. Succession plans for family farms, so they can stay in the family, have not been supported one bit. Oftentimes, family farms have to be fractured, fragmented, or sold in order to deal with the estate tax. This is nothing other than property theft: you have to buy the land, then you have to take the land out of production, you have to pay the property taxes on it and you don’t get any credit. That’s theft.”

Matt Birk answers a one-on-one question following a Q&A at Thumper Pond in Ottertail on May 1, 2022 (Photo: Zeke Fuhrman)

“One of the big topics we’ve addressed is crime,” said Birk. “I don’t know what crime is like up here, but crime in the Cities and crime in the suburbs is off the charts. Why is that? First and foremost, Tim Walz and all of his people have cultivated a culture of total disrespect for our law enforcement officers. No wonder they’re retiring and quitting in droves. I would, too. If I put my life on the line every single day to protect complete strangers and I’m not getting any thanks and I’m not getting any support, I would do that, too. So how do we solve that? It all starts with education. I don’t think you can blame these kids for turning to a life of crime if a kid’s not getting a quality education.”

“We haven’t had any big ideas on education since the 1980s,” added Jensen. “Governor Rudy Perpich helped usher in PSEO. Then we had open enrollment. And nothing since. We need not just PSEO, but PSTO: Post Secondary Technology Options. We should be having juniors and seniors…if you’re bored in a class, get to a hospital and learn how to draw blood or learn how laboratory testing is done. Get to the cabinet maker down the street and start working with your hands and learning how to do that. When I was a kid, we did industrial arts, we did auto mechanics, we did drafting. This is nuts telling everyone you have to learn this one way with a computer or you’re gonna fail in society.”

(Photo: Zeke Fuhrman)

The GOP State Convention is in Rochester May 13-14, where delegates will endorse their candidate for governor. Jensen and former House Majority Leader Paul Gazelka of East Gull Lake are considered the frontrunners for the party’s candidate. 

LISTEN TO DR. SCOTT JENSEN AND MATT BIRK’S FULL REMARKS BELOW: