MINOT - Secretary of State Al Jaeger joked about his charisma deficit. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem laughed at a verbal slip by one of his supporters, who described Stenehjem as "delinquent," rather than diligent, in cracking down on sex offenders.

For Republican state convention delegates, most of the business here Saturday was devoted to the low-stress job of endorsing four incumbent officeholders to run this fall: Jaeger, Stenehjem, Public Service Commissioner Tony Clark and Tax Commissioner Cory Fong.

All four men were unopposed at the convention, and all except Fong are running for re-election. Fong, who was appointed tax commissioner by Gov. John Hoeven last summer, is running his first campaign for himself, after years as working as an aide for others.

"We must work to continually strengthen our state's business climate," Fong said. "We must always strive to be more attractive to outside and new investment, and supportive to our existing businesses, working hand in hand with them to help them grow and succeed."

Democrats have already endorsed Bismarck attorney Brent Edison to oppose Fong.

Today, when Democrats wrap up their convention in Fargo, they expect to endorse Fargo attorney Cheryl Bergian to run against Clark, choose Mayville attorney William Brudvik to oppose Stenehjem, and pick from between two Bismarck residents, Kristin Hedger and Tom Willard, to run against Jaeger.

Stenehjem said two of his goals for a new term would be to make possession of child pornography a felony on the first offense. It is now a misdemeanor, with a maximum punishment of a year in jail.

He also intends to set up a statewide task force to run sting operations aimed at ensnaring sexual predators who troll for children on the Internet, he said.

"We must remind our children that when they are chatting on the Internet, be careful. You don't know who you are visiting with," he said. "But we need to be able to tell the predators, 'Watch out. You don't know who you are chatting with either. It just might be a cop."'

Clark, who was first elected to the PSC in 2000, said his experience will be valuable in shaping changes in the telecommunications and energy industries, and in judging future utility rate cases.

"Since my election, we have seen literally hundreds of megawatts of new electric generation either built or planned. New pipelines are being constructed, new coal reserves are being tapped," Clark said. "For responsible growth to continue, it's important to have an experienced leader."

The lack of challengers helped promote some levity in the speechifying.

Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer, who is not on the ballot this year, gave a speech that was less than a minute long, which drew a standing ovation from delegates.

Stenehjem praised the lefse prepared by his wife, Beth, for a campaign hospitality room for delegates, but said he drew the line at including lutefisk. "There are some things I just won't do to get elected," the attorney general said.

Jaeger's supporters declined to organize a floor demonstration to celebrate his endorsement, and the secretary of state referred to a remark he had heard on a talk radio show that he was "not very exciting."

"I don't want to disrupt my image," he said.

A delegate who gave one of the seconding speeches for Jaeger's nomination was Lowell Fruhwirth, who was Jaeger's North Dakota Army National Guard commander when about 500 guardsmen went into Zap, N.D., to quell student unrest resulting from the infamous "Zip to Zap" in May 1969.

The "Zip" was promoted as a low-cost spring break. The idea snowballed, and about 2,000 students descended on the tiny town. The beer quickly ran out, the cafe closed and the students rioted. They were eventually run out of town at bayonet-point.

"We did the invasion of Zap," Jaeger said afterward. "We really did."

Grand Forks state Sen. Nick Hacker, who referred to Stenehjem's pursuit of sex offenders as "delinquent" before he corrected himself, said the attorney general's worst enemy would be apathy by his own supporters. Stenehjem won re-election two years ago with 73 percent of the vote.

"The enemy in this race is our own complacency, that attitude of, 'Why worry? Wayne will win,'" Hacker said. "It should be our greatest fear."