Dale Peterson: Alabama Ag Commissioner

So, from the above ad, we have learned that Dale Peterson will "name names and take no prisoners" as he, presumably, shoots illegals and saves family farms. This is interesting, given the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industry Vision Statement:

To provide timely, fair and expert regulatory control over product, business entities, movement, and application of goods and services for which applicable state and federal law exists and strive to protect and provide service to Alabama consumers. Department personnel will actively work to initiate and support economic development activities and promote domestic and international consumption of Alabama products. It is the Department's goal to be recognized for its employee's integrity and professional performance.

I invite you to compare and contrast the message in the above video with the Vision Statement of the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industry. You may recognize some disparity between what Dale Peterson seeks to do and...the job description of the position for which he is seeking nomination.

In addition to his general confusion over what his job would be, we have the issues related to Dale Peterson's Platform:

Every state has its special challenges, and one of Alabama's is agriculture. Agriculture in Alabama is broken. Every day we lose three family farms. Every year, we lose over 1,000 family farms. Why? Because our farmers can't make a living farming. What choice do they have? Sadly, they have no choice but to leave farming and find some other means to support their families.
That is unacceptable.

So, Peterson thinks that in the year 2010 we need to preserve family farming given that the Free Market has made family farming an unviable lifestyle choice. As a Republican it is, of course, sensible for Peterson to seek to counteract the Free Market.

Moreover, Peterson's qualifications could be considered questionable:

Having never held political office or been appointed to any state farm related committees or boards makes me uniquely different from the other candidates seeking Alabama's Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries job in 2010.

So, in the same way that I would be uniquely qualified to be a medical practitioner, Dale Peterson is uniquely qualified to be Alabama Ag Commissioner. His complete lack of experience and knowledge serves as an ideal foundation from which to make decisions related to counteracting the Free Market.

If you read further in Peterson's Platform you will find the three problems upon which Peterson will focus, so utilizing his complete lack of experience or knowhow:

1) Leadership
By utilizing his "drive and grit", Peterson will be a strong leader. Now, he does not indicate to where he would lead anyone. But, rest assured that he would strongly lead into this unknown and unspecified direction.

2) Profitability
Currently, due to the Free Market, agriculture is not a profitable industry in Alabama. Peterson seeks to change this by implimenting a 1, 3, and 5 year plan to increase profits. The plans are not specified on the site, but rest assured that Peterson has plans.

3) Job Creation
"The initiation of stability will begin as farm taxes are reduced or eliminated and longevity of those jobs will, in part, be provided through a proposed tax relief provision for farm-related businesses contained in the Agribusiness Plan. As agribusiness begins to return to profitability, we will see reversal in Alabama agribusiness jobs moving out of State."

If we reduce the taxes on agriculture, then agriculture will be profitable, because the only thing making agriculture unprofitable is taxes. Then there will be jobs, sweet sweet jobs!

You may find it reassuring to know that Peterson is also something of an environmentalist:
"We can also preserve the ecological balance of the environment while simultaneously maintaining substantial agricultural production."

Again, Peterson does not specify how we can do this...but he owns a rifle, so I trust him.

His website also includes a page which articulates the narrative of Joe Legal and Jose Illegal, which respectfully and artifully articulates the problems with illegal immigration. It turns out the problem is that Jose Illegal does not have to pay taxes and receives government handouts, which is why Dale Peterson wants to reduce the taxes on small farms and give them government handouts. Because, you see, tax relief and government handouts are only a problem when they are given to spics.