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We are now more than six weeks into MinneWalz Mania, a flood of national news and social media commentary on all things pertaining to Minnesota and our exuberant would-be vice president, Gov. Tim Walz.
Lots of angles have been explored, mostly superficial stuff: Our quirky folksiness and funny accents, dontcha know? Good neighbor Tim’s dadly vibe and “tonic masculinity.” And the obligatory rehashing of the mistakes and misstatements that inevitably pile up after almost 20 years in public office.
Watch for more about us and him in the lead-up to the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 1. Brace yourselves for more absurd right-wing falsehoods portraying Minnesota as a dystopian Marxist hellhole, a failed state run by cop-haters and overrun by criminals and communists and scary foreigners determined to eat all our pets.
Missing so far has been any serious in-depth treatment of Minnesota’s distinctive political character and how Walz as an immigrant from Nebraska was shaped by those traditions to emerge as a national leader. (Check out my “Reappraising Minnesota” series in MinnPost for in-depth analysis of how Minnesota has both changed but stayed true to its essence since 1973. That’s when Wendell Anderson, another plaid-shirted liberal governor, was celebrated on the cover of Time magazine as a symbol of “The Good Life in Minnesota.”)
Some national observers have noted that Minnesota has the longest unbroken record of voting for Democratic presidents and that Walz is the third Democratic VP candidate from Minnesota over the last 60 years. But few have tried to dig deeper to explain why Minnesota persists as a reliably blue high ground against a Trump tide in the rural Upper Midwest.
That one overlooked true thing throughout our history, before and since statehood in 1858, is a well-deserved reputation as an egalitarian and communitarian outlier among the states and in our region. Our better angels have sought not just greater equality through expanded entitlement to basic human needs, but a sense of solidarity and community. And it’s often been driven by a liberal religious conviction that all of us are God’s children and that we are obligated to take care of each other.