Minnesota's future: Make the GOP relevant again

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. (To contribute, click here.) This article is a response to Star Tribune Opinion's June 4 call for submissions on the question: "Where does Minnesota go from here?" Read the full collection of responses here.

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As a resident of blazer blue St. Paul, I don't interact much with fellow Republicans on a daily basis. Most of my neighborhood friends are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats — and the experience has been good for me. Subjecting my own conservative viewpoints to regular challenge has made them stronger. Listening to people who count on government for help has made me more empathetic. And, above all, I have come to realize we can indeed love and like those with whom we have nothing in common politically — even during the most divisive of times.

Lately, however, I have been struck by how frequently even many of my left leaning friends complain about the inability of Minnesota's Republican Party to serve as a statewide electoral force and source of balance in our politics. They have quietly acknowledged the unimpeded DFL trifecta went too far in this year's legislative session and worry about the consequences to come after Minnesota's rapid transformation into a place that's overly hostile toward private enterprise, excessively soft on crime and too supportive of unchecked government bloat.

Poll after poll shows that most Minnesotans are nowhere near as liberal as Gov. Tim Walz and the thin DFL majorities at the state Legislature. So how are they in power? In part, the dishonesty of many Democratic candidates in the last election is to blame. Countless DFL contenders, Walz the worst among them, engaged in false advertising when they sold themselves to voters as prudent moderates last November but then veered hard to port when it came time to govern. The bias of many in the mainstream Minnesota media in favor of the state's ruling political party has not helped matters for conservatives here either.

But the foremost reason far-left progressives seized control of our more moderate state's government is that we Republicans let them. Too many unforced errors. Too much Trumpism and nuttiness. Too few quality candidates.

At the moment, the Minnesota GOP, for all intents and purposes, is politically impotent. And so long as that is the case, the North Star State will be surrendered to the whims of DFL, which has no interest in moderation. Unfettered DFL dominance has left Minneapolis and St. Paul as shadows of the cities they once were. We cannot let them do that to the entire state.

We certainly need not change our core conservative principles; they remain the pathway to victory. As Minnesota continues to shed population and investment each year and slouches toward the fiscal calamity currently facing its big government brethren like Illinois and New York, voters here will soon be clamoring for new free market ideas and a more limited state bureaucracy — and the economic vitality those things bring.

And as Democrats' weak and woke approach to crime continues to perpetuate lawlessness in the metro, Twin Citians may want a return to the Republican bread and butter issue of law and order. Minnesotans too will also soon be confronted with the dark cultural agenda Walz and his allies enacted, such as eliminating any and all protections for the innocent unborn right up until the moment of birth, the politicization and sexualization of our public-school classrooms and the shredding away of basic parental rights. Republicans can offer us a trail back to decency and common sense.

But, to gain a political foothold in Minnesota again, our party must nominate a different kind of statewide candidate. Too often our top-of-ticket asserts a harsh and myopic message that repels the moderate Minnesota voters we need to win.

Of course, conservatives are angry at what the radical left is doing to our beloved country and once thriving state. I share that. But candidates who run on rage are doomed to lose. We ought instead to get behind competent and joyful standard-bearers who articulate a hopeful vision that can appeal to a broad swath of voters who see that Minnesota is in decline and want to stop it.

Another casualty of losing election after election is that many center-right minded voters remain on the political sidelines. What's the point when we just lose in November anyway? In turn, this has ceded control of our endorsement process to an ever-shrinking activist group, and thus GOP candidates tend to have an ever-narrowing political appeal. We have become a tiny tent party — and that is a fatal electoral problem. To change course, more moderate and conservative voters must ditch their apathy and get active in the GOP endorsement process and donate time and money to attractive candidates. "The world," as they say, "is run by those who show up." So is the Republican Party.

But as a wise mentor once told me, nothing changes if nothing changes. Republicans need to toss aside the current losing political playbook, declare 2022 our electoral bottom and start winning and influencing public policy here again. The good people of this state deserve it.