It is such great news to hear that the North Dakota Republican Party has endorsed Gov. John Hoeven and Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple for another term. With this news, we can be certain that North Dakota will continue its progress for at least another four years.

Although March Madness is over, the college basketball tournament always brings talk of a "Cinderella story"-the small colleges that rise from the bottom of the rankings to win it all. North Dakota could very well be the Cinderella story for this nation.

Our often underrated North Dakota has risen from its doom-and-gloom days of the 1980s and has become a national leader in exports, competitiveness, manufacturing and energy. We are also above the national average in job creation and rising wages and income - and we continue to rise ever faster.

We have a budget surplus when so many other states are experiencing budget deficits. North Dakota truly is rising from the bottom of the rankings and is poised to take it all. We can credit much of this to the sound and effective policy of Hoeven and the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The Democrats have tried to convince us that the progress we are experiencing is just "luck."

This, however, is just a ploy to distract North Dakotans from the fact that Republican leadership has brought North Dakota out of the funk it experienced under Democratic leadership in the 1980s and into a prosperous and exciting time for us to call North Dakota home.

If it is just luck, it appears we've been lucky for more than a decade.

If this is the case, I personally will stick with the winning bet that has been producing this progress for the last several years: I'll be placing my bet on Hoeven and his fellow Republicans this fall.