Brown: On the eve of the election, both campaign offices in this Minnesota town were dark

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It’s 7:30 p.m. on the eve of Election Day. I’m driving through Grand Rapids, Minn., known to some as Judy Garland’s hometown. I wonder if three clicks of Dorothy’s ruby slippers would whisk me safely beyond the coming political drama. Perhaps this was all a dream?

A cardboard cutout of Donald Trump giving a thumbs up reminds me that I am awake. This timeline might be strange, but it is real.

Grand Rapids is the seat of Itasca County, a northern land of lakes and forests that supported Barack Obama by comfortable margins in 2008 and 2012, but then swung hard for Donald Trump in 2016. Trump widened his margin here four years ago, and it seems safe to say he’ll carry the county again in today’s election, though only the voters can say for certain.

What had my attention last night was the image of dueling campaign headquarters. The Itasca County DFL has maintained a year-round headquarters on bustling 4th Street for more than 15 years, dating back to when the county voted DFL and elected all DFL legislators.

This year, Itasca County Republicans opened their headquarters across the street. In an apt metaphor of changing times, the GOP building is bigger, brighter, more visible and painted to look like a giant American flag. The Trump cutout stares out the window at the DFL headquarters, which now resembles a typewriter repair shop by comparison.

And yet there was one more important observation to be made. On the night before an election both sides call the most consequential of our tumultuous times, both offices were closed, locked and dark.

Phone banking? That’s done elsewhere now, on personal cellphones or through large call centers.

Last minute preparations for sign-waving and getting out the vote? Again, much of that is coordinated online, through Facebook or proprietary apps.

The local campaign headquarters isn’t a headquarters so much as an elaborate set piece and executive lounge for the true believers.

These contrasting campaign offices in Itasca County might resemble convenient symbols for recent political change, but their relative quiet so close to the election reflects what’s really changed in small towns across Minnesota: All politics is online.

Indeed, both GOP and DFL units competed in this election. The campaign committees housed in these buildings each paid for significant amounts of radio airtime on the biggest commercial station in Grand Rapids. They participated in the requisite number of door knocks and campaign sign drops.

But persuasion happens in the mysterious nether of the human mind, where most of us sync daily with a hand-held computer. All politics is local, they say. We’re about to find out. What we see might not be what’s really happening.