Minnesota- Why can't the GOP get the job done there?

[Ban my account ffs!]

North-central MN is moderately DFL... but that is pretty sticky.  Except in GOP wave years, the DFL will eek out a 5-10 point win every time.

Bemidji is kind of like a larger metro:  Within the city limits it's strongly DFL.  This is from college students as well as the fact that the old fogies just tend to support Democrats and be generally pretty liberal.

The surrounding townships are more GOP friendly, especially on a presidential level... even so they still tend to pick the DFLer.  

The district to my west on the state level has tended to be divided between a 55/45 GOP favored white population and a 90-10 DFL favored Native population.  So Democrats tend to win there, again, except in GOP wave eyars (like 2010).

Duluth is very DFL friendly and is genuinely liberal.  The Iron Range is also very DFL friendly... but is more socially conservative.  They love to talk about fishing and hunting... it dominates life in most of northern MN.  If you haven't gotten a deer yourself... someone will most surely be gifting you venison sausage for the holidays.  And it's not just rifle hunting... but bowhunting as well cuz hunting is that much fun to people.  (personally I think it's boring as hell)

When you hit a deer here... it is expected that you will try to salvage some of the meat.  Might as well try to get your money's worth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow8NCzzeFn0

[Ban my account ffs!]

First of all:  The Democrats didn't just "put Farmer-Labor" in the name any more than the Republican party named itself the Grand Old Party.

The Farmer-Labor party was a socialist party made up largely of working class industrial laborers and farmers... two groups that the elites always tried to set against one another to keep them divided.

When farmers and laborers finally realized they could combine forces and win... they did.

It's why our Farmer-Labor governor threatened the legislature with martial law if they didn't increase relief (welfare) during the depression... saying that the militia would take far more than he was asking for right then.  And guess what?  The conservative legislature gave in.

The Farmer-Laborites espoused socialist policies, but within a capitalist market based framework.  And they did well by rightly saying to the Republicans "oh you might not like us... but you should see the guys in line behind us!" and so that's how they garnered power.

But by the late 1930s with the death of Floyd Olson, MN returned to its Republican roots.  Seeing this, one Hubert Horatio Humphrey, a lonely Democrat in a state where the Democrats were a useless 3rd party, offered to join forces with the Farmer-Laborites.  He could provide the national support and connectivity that the Democrats had... but marry it with the more left wing desires of the socialist Farmer-Laborites to provide the voting base.

This same process happened in North Dakota which is why North Dakota has the Republicans and the Dem-NPL party.  The Democrats in North Dakota joined forces with the non-partisan league.

And while Minnesotans were skeptical of Democrats considering their, shall we say, unfortunate views on segregation... they jumped into the boat when HHH demanded that the Democratic party throw off the shackles of racism and become the party of civil rights.  You know.. another thing oldiesfreak wouldn't understand.

As for the Iron Range:  They've remained DFL because nobody is moving there.  Some people stay there.  Others are born there and move away.  Nobody moves there.  There has been no significant injection of new blood into that area since basically WWII.

The areas on the fringes of the Iron Range that are growing are filling up with your well educated, granola greeny types who want to live in the woods.

But on "da Range" as they say, are communities that have been shedding people left and right for 60 years.  Where there were 100 people with pickaxes... now there is one guy overseeing the operation of self-driving enormous dump trucks.  And the guy makes $35/hour thanks to his union. 

So it's a matter of "what alternatives?"  The insular quality of the Iron Range community would shun any carpetbagger Republicans who might have a resonating message that has won over other working class whites... and the only local Republicans are crazy as hell.  So the DFL cleans up. 

And it's not as if that isn't perpetuating itself.  The Iron Range, in being loyal to the DFL for lack of alternatives, has naturally become more liberal on issues than they would have if the GOP was competitive.  It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

This is the guy they elected for a few decades to our legislature:


Tommy Rukavina fights the good fight and doesn't put up with Republican crap.

He retired.  Now they have Carly Melin


She also doesn't put up with Republican crap.  And she challenges the DFL from the left on a lot of issues.