Ronald Reagan (R): 525 Walter Mondale (D): 13
Posted on 06/27/2004 1:11:43 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
*****After Ventura's rocky single term in office, many Minnesotans voted for another third- party candidate to succeed him in 2002. Wisconsin likewise gave a third-party candidate for governor double-digit support.
Political scientists explain that once voters defect from previously established party preferences, they are more likely to stay away. A Democrat voting for Ventura in 1998, or Perot for president in 1992 or '96, is more likely to stray again - perhaps even voting for Republican Bush.
``It's like having an affair. Once you've broken away, once you've lost your moorings with your longtime party, you don't re-establish that quickly or easily,'' says Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. ****
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Come November, Minnesotans might end 32 years of supporting Democrats for president - a step that could prove pivotal to the re-election hopes of Republican George W. Bush.
To understand why, a Floridian might look no further than the pews of tiny Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
Here in the woods of Minnesota's Central Lakes country, close-knit congregants speak their minds and cast a wary eye toward anyone with too much power.
There is Fritz Lueck, whose great-grandfather helped build the church 107 years ago, in imitation of the white clapboard house of worship he left behind in Sweden. Lueck voted for Ventura in 1998.
``My people were independent when they came over, and they still are,'' he says.
There are Ruth and Doug Nelson, until recently a widow and widower. Now they're newlyweds whose taste in sports never wavers - they wear matching maroon-and- yellow jackets of the University of Minnesota Gophers - but whose politics aren't as reliable.
``I think for myself,'' she says.
``I'm hoping for someone independent instead of those powerful parties,'' he says.
From the pulpit, pastor Nancy Isaacson compares the community to a violin with 58 parts, ``no one of them capable of approaching the music of Itzhak Perlman.''
She relates the latest hometown news - a funeral, a birth, the high school graduation of David Baumgartner. Accompanied by an old upright piano, Baumgartner steps forward to croon the praise tune ``Above All,'' then recounts the memories he'll take with him to the faraway Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nancy Nelson gives him a quilt several women made to comfort him at college. Stitched in it are reminders to love, laugh, dream, go to church and call home.
When services end, many stay for an hour of fellowship. Gary Heimark, a descendant of Norwegian cattlemen, takes the time to explain how the personal affects the political.
``We care about community. We are more concerned about individuals,'' Heimark says. ``And when people talk with neighbors like this, it makes us all more independent-thinking.
``We're not going to buy into left-wing garbage or right-wing garbage. In a rural community, we're not so hooked into the media and we're not so rushed. People talk to each other. That means hearing more views.''
Strength Of Connections
Robert Putnam, a Harvard University professor of public policy and a leading scholar in how social life affects political participation, couldn't agree more.
In a 1995 book, ``Bowling Alone,'' Putnam identified Minnesota as the most socially connected of large states, and thus more engaged in public life.
Combine those connections with a Scandinavian tradition of grass-roots democracy that survives even in some cities. Contrast that with the transience of fast-growing areas such as Tampa or Orlando.
The result is what Putnam terms ``a high social-capital civic culture that takes politics seriously.''
``Florida has so many more newcomers than small-town Minnesota,'' Putnam says. ``Residential mobility has the effect of limiting civic engagement and social connections.
``People are like plants. When repotted, some of our roots break off, and it takes a long time to get rerooted.''
Yet despite the cultural distance from Florida, Minnesota is in a Florida-style dead heat that just might decide the next presidential election.
In the Land of 10,000 Lakes (officially, 11,842), the race for the White House is simply too close to call. In Florida and at least 15 other ``battleground states,'' the margin between Bush and challenger John Kerry is similarly tight.
Minnesota's close call may be echoed in nearby Wisconsin and Iowa, as well, leaving 27 electoral votes in play in this part of the Upper Midwest - exactly Florida's count.
Political independence is a big part of the reason.
After Ventura's rocky single term in office, many Minnesotans voted for another third- party candidate to succeed him in 2002. Wisconsin likewise gave a third-party candidate for governor double-digit support.
Political scientists explain that once voters defect from previously established party preferences, they are more likely to stay away. A Democrat voting for Ventura in 1998, or Perot for president in 1992 or '96, is more likely to stray again - perhaps even voting for Republican Bush.
``It's like having an affair. Once you've broken away, once you've lost your moorings with your longtime party, you don't re-establish that quickly or easily,'' says Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.
So, in the state with the longest record of voting Democratic for president, independents have helped to give Republicans a chance to break through.
Looking For Leaders
For decades, the party of Hubert H. Humphrey dominated Minnesota politics. Its name advertised its core constituencies: ``Democratic- Farmer-Labor.''
But the DFL no longer has much F or L.
``Take that label and try to find that population,'' says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the 2004 Elections Project at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
``The percentage of farmers is minuscule. Farms are now suburbs,'' he says. ``And nowadays the labor element is small. The party is resting on an anachronism.''
Diane Knutson, another member of Bethlehem Lutheran, comes from a long line of Democrats who favored the old school of Humphrey, McCarthy and Walter Mondale. Not her.
Knutson's father, an auto mechanic, ``grew up in a different time, with workers extremely mistreated,'' she says. ``Back then you had to have a labor voice to get anything.''
Today's Democrats, like Republicans, aren't as genuine as independents, in her view.
Looking For A Message
``It's more personal convictions you can count on being there, rather than spoon-fed, polished positions,'' she says. ``We're looking for a message from a leader - not a message from a party.''
Campaign strategists are focusing on the ``Ventura Belt,'' Minnesota's growing urban midsection, where younger residents are more likely to reject the traditional pasts of their families. This is the area where newer arrivals to the state have flocked, too.
As Eric Morgando subjects himself to a tattoo artist's needle in St. Cloud, the 29-year- old son of die-hard Democrats acknowledges he has ``flipped back and forth a lot, starting with Jesse Ventura.''
``I thought he was a straightshooter, though that didn't work out,'' Morgando says. In the presidential race, ``I think I'll vote for Bush.''
Bush barely lost Minnesota in 2000. Democrat Al Gore prevailed with 48 percent of the vote to Bush's 46 percent. In the ``Ventura Belt,'' Bush pulled 50 percent to Gore's 44 percent.
Two years later, Republicans grabbed a U.S. Senate seat, the governorship and enough of the Legislature to tie it in knots.
``This is not Hubert Humphrey's Minnesota,'' Sabato says.
Republicans appear to have benefited also from the state's political caucuses, which stimulate discussion among average citizens, says W. Phillips Shively, a University of Minnesota political scientist.
When citizens are more involved, ``political situations and party alignments will be more fluid than they are where politics is based on top-down organization,'' Shively says.
Thus, as conservatives have gained nationally since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, reliably Democratic Minnesota ``has seen more of a systematic shift in government as a result of that than almost anywhere outside the South,'' he says.
Democrats are trying to invite more people to the party. They're wooing moderate voters with appeals about education, the environment and awful traffic in the area of bustling Minneapolis-St. Paul.
It had to happen, says Rick Stafford, the Democratic state chairman from 1992 to 1995. With different lives and better jobs, ``people lost the history'' of the party, he says. ``People who once supported us don't have the loyalty anymore.''
One hot-button issue working for Democrats: Mercury pollution that has prompted an advisory against consuming fish from all of Minnesota's famed lakes and 4,100 miles of its rivers. That includes the great Mississippi River, which commences its 2,552-mile, 90- day journey to New Orleans as raindrops falling on Lake Itasca near Bemidji.
``Our doors have been thrown wide open,'' says Mike Erlandson, the party chairman. Prodded in some cases by antipathy toward Bush, ``people are coming back.''
Republicans feel most secure in places such as the suburbs around the Twin Cities.
A ring once farmed by Democrats now holds Republicans in subdivisions with large homes, leafy parks and convenient access to Totally Tan and Caribou Coffee outlets.
Cathy Goetz arrived two years ago in Apple Valley, a Brandon-like suburb that stopped resembling rolling pasture long before she moved from Illinois. She's surrounded by families like hers at the Little League field where son Jake plays ball.
``I was a Clinton-hater, and I'm a pretty loyal Bush supporter,'' Goetz says. ``He's got conviction. He makes a move and sticks to it.''
Personal Convictions
The independents, meanwhile, hold their ground.
At a cemetery in Nowthen - named for its lack of anything interesting - ``vault man'' Leon Ebner prepares a grave in the shadow of an old silo and barn. They were moved to the spot years ago, ahead of a developer's bulldozer blades, and today they're a draw for suburbanites seeking a ``show'' about old-fashioned hay threshing.
``People want the country feeling, I guess, but you've got to go at least an hour for good fishing now,'' Ebner laments. To him, the land feels depleted by too much housing.
``Folks like Bush around here now,'' he says; he opposes the president and the war while doubting Kerry can deliver on promises to help with jobs and medical bills.
``I guess I'll do like I usually do, hope someone else comes along,'' he says.
Marty Primus, a dairy farmer near Sauk Center, also groans about the choices, then demonstrates how an individual voter can choose without regard to most of the issues a campaign puts forward to the masses.
``Come in the parlor, girls,'' Primus instructs his 48 cows as they thunder into the barn. Turning to the question at hand, he explains:
``I don't like Bush's war in Iraq, and I don't like Kerry's position on abortion. I'm independent, and I used to be pro- choice. But I'll vote pro-life, so it'll probably be Bush.''
His vote reflects his wife's miscarriage. Twelve years afterward, he still mourns.
The baby ``would have been born in September,'' Primus says, voice cracking. ``If life doesn't hold sanctity for you, as a person or as a candidate, life has no meaning. A civilization that turns against its babies soon turns against itself.
``So that's how it is,'' he concludes. ``A person has to vote their convictions, and only a person who's truly independent can. I'm going to vote mine.''
Reporter Keith Epstein can be reached at (202) 662-7673.
Sounds like a bunch of idiots, who don't know who to vote for???????????? Wake up dimwits, and vote for the winner.
Not the Vietnam hatefull loser.
Hey...They elected Norm Coleman! I think the tide is turning. Minnesotans are VERY interesting. Just as for Zell and many of us...The Democratic party left them. Hopefully, the Wellstone funeral opened their eyes for good!
The DFL moved to the Left and found itself out of touch with Minnesotans. The state does have Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman. If President Bush wins the state in November, its a sign of how far Minnesota has changed since the days it used to be a reliable Democratic stronghold in presidential elections.
I well remember the off year election of 1978 when Minnesota elected two GOP U.S. Senators and a GOP Governor.
Sounds like a bunch of idiots, who don't know who to vote for???????????? Wake up dimwits, and vote for the winner.
Not the Vietnam hatefull loser.
The history of the DFL faithful in Minnesota, from my prespective 1987 - 1992, was their most virulent and vocal supporters were always those that stood to gain finacially from the government, all others be damned.
If you had a non construction union job, were self-employed or had any gumption whatsoever, you were an IR. And to tell you the truth, in the four and a half years I lived and worked in Minnesota, outside of the building trades and teachers, I hardly ever met a professed supporter of the DFL.
"Scandinavian tradition of grass-roots democracy..."
That's a total pant-load of B.S.
The corrected description would read: 'Scandinavian tradition of grass-roots SOCIALISM.'
This nitwit in Florida must have called his buddies up in Minnesota at the Red Star for a little background in addition to his 'research' garnered while listening to Kiellor's 'Prairie Home Companion.'
The truth is that Minnesotans are in play, but not because they are such deep thinkers. The Left in Minnesota is crazier than sh*thouse RATs and they are alienating everyone but their brainless zealots.
The labor in the rural north is a conservative on social issues as anywhere else, but also as selfishly devoted to their union politics as unionists anywhere. There are deadly issues that are providing 'R' votes from this camp, however, such as gun laws and 2A issues. NO, I repeat, NO national level representation will get support in the great white north by p*ssing on 2A issues. Them boys take their firearms as seriously as the pork that they like delivered to their front doors.
There are enclaves of loony lefties up there, though. In the far north lake country, all sorts of wood-fired, hand-thrown pottery and croissant shop B&B's dot the landscape. In Duluth, the vacuum created by collapsing industry has been filled with tourist-trap aroma therapy spas and eco-awareness groups. These remain the essential active elements of the left in the wake of the nearly dead union-labor traditions.
Farmers, almost predictably, wail about the loss of the family farm, but insist that the rest of us support their family business (no matter how poorly run) until hell freezes over. Even though food production takes less land every year and yields continue to increase, these people continue to farm as they always have doing the grunt work of raising nearly valueless commodities (Corn for $1.25? Who will give me $1.26?). Oh yeah, this is a smart bunch. Virtually every farmer I have ever known jumped on the cash-crop wagon after WWII and dumped their independence for the lure of cash money. Fair enough when inputs and interest are low, but hell to pay when things go up.
Q: So what are the "independent" and wisened farmers doing to improve their niche and what are they growing today?
A: Corn, beans, corn, beans, corn, beans, corn, beans, corn, beans, corn, beans...I could go on, but I'm sure the reader gets the drift.
Highly effective businessmen and well worth the investment of public dollars in endless price support and subsidies.
In the metro, things are as they are in many other places. The core remains leftist and the productive classes are leaving. Unfortunately, the metro retains the populace numbers and, thus, the votes needed to dominate at the capitol. Fortunately, those numbers are being eclipsed by growing numbers of grass-roots challengers and outstate representatives that don't neccessarily believe that inconvenient babies should be ground into pulp for industrial ingredients while being subsidized by taxpayer dollars.
The imbeciles in this article are straight from our major export to the nation - Garison Kiellor's NPR radio show. After highlighting the rural Lutheran church with the female pastor mouthing homilies, we are treated to a series of inane parishoner claims of 'independence.' Independent of what? Independent of crainial tissue and a central nervous system, would be my guess. Genuinely independent Lutherans have long since abandoned much of the Lutheran church for lots of reasons, not the least of which is it's increasing liberalism and leftist political activism. The gasbags quoted in this piece use the usual shiboleths about political corruption in both parties as cover for the @ss-kicking they know they will recieve if they openly support the socialist RATs in the DFL. They can bloviate all they want about being free thinkers and independent, but once Novemeber rolls around, this clot of dung stuck to the pews of their apostate church will act like lemmings and vote, vote, and vote again for the brand of communism they desperately hope will support their worthless butts with welfare, medicaid, medicare, free bus-rides, senior centers and all of the other pork they know and love.
Of course, these are strictly my own views. Being the Minnesotan and moderate that I am, I'm quite suprised that I wasn't contacted for inclusion in this article...
Good Luck to Minnesoda. Maybe they'll come around.
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 12:24:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Xnnn Xnnnnnn
Subject: Republicans: Strong showing in Big Lake Spud Fest Parade
Strong showing of support in Big Lake, Spud Fest Parade. We had over 65 marching and riding in cars, Atvs, bikes and Mark Olson State Rep H.D - 16B as usual on his unicycle in the parade.
Our group stretched over a city block in support of our President & Vice President, Mark Kennedy U.S Congress & Mark Olson State Rep H.D. - 16B.
The crowd response was GREAT ! Alot of cheers and clapping and a few four fingers held high.
Our fellow Dems did not fair as well. We counted about 15-20 Kerry & Wetterling supporters in the parade. My wife watched the parade and told me very little response from the crowd where she was standing when they went by quietly. In fact, they had trouble giving out campaign stickers because no one wanted them.
Looks good to me.
Yup. Bottom line, Minnesota is a populist state, which is why we have the DFL, used to have IR, and elected Ventura, and right now the DFL is too weird hardcore left for a lot of regular Minnesotans.
If HHH were alive today, he'd be a Republican. The man made his reputation by kicking the communists out of the DFL, and if you go back and read the speeches he made when he was a senator, he took positions that would make him a moderate Republican today -- or even right-winger, if you look at his stands on the 2nd Amendment.
As so many Minnesotans say these days, "I didn't leave the DFL. It left me."
Ronald Reagan (R): 525 Walter Mondale (D): 13
FYI Mondale was from MN. and he only one by a few thousand votes. Pres. Reagan never came here to campaign. He would have one.
Every politician in the federal and state systems should be paid minimum wage and not allowed to eanr a dime more from any other source while serving. Service was intended to be a sacrifice.
The Range is seriously pissed at the current crop of MetroCrats, and if a similar effort was attempted today, it would fail.
This is a very important key to the election. Pro-life vote needs to show up in full force.
Sorry Keith, last FL poll shows GWB up 9 points.
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