Opinion of this 1964 Johnson campaign ad?

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Hubert Humphrey was a key player in getting civil rights onto the Democratic party platform, and he made that speech in 1944.

This marked the time when southerners began to leave the Democratic party and Minnesotans started leaving the Republican party. 

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Yes, the Farmer-Labor party was really the 2nd party during the 1920s and '30s with governors, senators, and house members elected from the party...

But the liberal base was always split, so the Republicans pretty much took everything.

It wasn't until the parties merged in 1944, thanks in no small part to Humphrey, that the DFLers became competitive and started really winning.

The Republicans became more moderate during the depression, but conservative was a dirty word, and the DFLers were trying to out-liberal eachother (how times change).

After the war, the Republicans were a pretty moderate party while the DFL was center left.  Both parties were integral in the education and healthcare reform that led to the "Minnesota Miracle".

After Watergate, the Republicans changed their name to the Minnesota Independent-Republican party and kept that name for 20 years.

So yes, for most of Minnesota's history, we were a strong Republican state, but we were never the conservatives like the New England Republicans.  We were progressive Republicans, which is why Teddy Roosevelt did so well here.

North Dakota has had similar politics on a state level, and their Democratic Party is known as the Dem-NPL (non-partisan league) party.

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No.  Pawlenty is much more conservative than earlier Republican governors.  The last Republican, Arne Carlson, was a big pusher of creating and expanding the MinnesotaCare program.  Originally it would have covered all Minnesotans that didn't already have health insurance... but he didn't want to raise taxes to do it, so they kept it to mostly working poor and single moms and their kids.

Jesse Ventura was actually to the right of Pawlenty on economics, but in a different way.  Ventura was tough on schools with his rhetoric but never cut school funding.  Pawlenty cut the funding and got it forced through the legislature. 

Pawlenty has basically been the MN Taxpayer's league's bitch.  To him, tax cuts come first and foremost whether or not it means actively neglecting constitution-set spending priorities (transportation and education).

The DFL only has to pick up a few seats and we will have a veto-proof majority in both the house and senate, making Pawlenty a lame-duck.