How the hell did MN become a battleground state...

[Van Helsing]

for this upcoming presidential election? Gosh...I remember when we used to be liberal...what happened to that?

[Fovea]

1. In a word

Money.

Buy more media for Dems and it could reverse.
Jobs, Oil Prices, Iraq, 911, the party should buy time
and beat the pugs like a cheap drum.

[Gildor Inglorion]

2. Well, Senator Wellstone and his family were

"accidentally" killed in a plane crash. Maybe that explains something. Since I'm a Georgian living in Mississippi, I really can't do anything but sympathize. You can always say, "Well, thank God, at least Minnesota isn't Mississippi."

[springchicken]

13. Our Love

Here in Minnesota we still grieve the lost of the Wellstone
family
and our state associate chair Mary Mcevoy.  We have to count
our
selves fortunate that we had them for a short time.

[Zookeeper]

3. A lot of people have been moving to MN and..

the Twin Cities in particular. I've been here for 17 years and have seen a change in population and politics.

I see three groups contributing to the change: Metro area residents who have spent their whole lives in the 'burbs, people moving here from rural areas and people moving here from more conservative states. Many of these folks seem to have a view that "Liberal" things like public transportation, public education, parks, cultural (non-sport) activities and social services don't benefit them. They avoid going to the Cities, so they don't have a feeling of connection to those things and resent paying taxes to support them. Of course, they conveniently ignore the fact that taxpayers are also paying for the new roads and sewers needed for their new McMansion developments. (Not to mention the increased traffic congestion and air pollution.)

There has been redistricting, also. We lost a great State Rep. and now are stuck with Char Samuelson (Repug), who is only good at photo opps and toeing the party line.

I moved here from San Francisco because Minnesota was supposedly a Liberal state. The last few years have been very disappointing for me; I've felt pretty isolated politically.

[Something Blue]

4. Hiya!

Another BAT (Bay Area Transplant) here - moved from Oakland in 97!

[Zookeeper]

5. Hi Something Blue!

What brought you here?

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Something Blue]

7. Long Story

but the short version is that it involved a woman, IRC, and a huge error in judgement on my part...

But after all was said and done I realized that I really loved this state on a number of levels, and I decided to stay. Now you couldn't drag me back to California! I love it here!

[Zookeeper]

9. Well, I'm glad you decided to stay! n/t

[chicaloca]

12. and isn't it ironic...

that those Repukes who are turning the state conservative moved to Minnesota because it was a better place to live than the conservative areas they came from? And the reason MN was better off than their crappy little conservative hometowns was because of a lot of our liberal policies. Of course, now that things are going their way, look at the economic state we're in. At the very least, maybe they'll take their disposable income and move someplace else -- but I don't know if I should hope for that, because they'll probably just pick another liberal place with a good economy and ruin that, too. They're like the plague, I swear.

[Zookeeper]

15. I met a woman from North Oaks...

who's husband is a soon-to-be retired doctor. Fiscally Conservative/Libertarian types, I think. She said their plan is to move to a "no-tax" state, like Texas for retirement. She was a guest in my home, so I tried to be tactful and just said, "Well, I guess you can do that when your children are grown and you don't need public or government services like decent schools anymore."

A friend of mine pointed out later, that many of these retirees take their money to Texas or Florida to spend, then when they become ill or frail, they move back to Minnesota and get the State's help to pay for nursing home care.

[rumguy]

20. good point

repigs move into a state like MN and ruin it

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. My take on it after just a few months back

is that the DFL got complacent and didn't consider the Republicanites to be the threat that they are.

The energy was all on the R side.

I hope that the infusion of new delegates and party officials from this year's caucuses will change that.

[Zookeeper]

8. Our precinct caucus had ten times...

the usual number of participants! I do think we're being re-energized.

[Lindacooks]

14. Ours too!

In 2000 there were 90 people at the caucuses, this year more than 900. And the repukes had only 80 people at their pitiful little gathering - which was held in the new high school. Dems were crammed into the OLD middle school which is scheduled for demolition next year. Kind of an allegory for America.

[SmileyBoy]

10. Minnesota is becoming "Californicated".

It started in California after WWII, it's been going on for a while in Colorado, and it's starting in Minnesota. It's "The New White Flight". Read Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation" for more of an explanation of "Californication". Minnesota's recent population surge is one aspect of this.

[Zookeeper]

11. I don't think Californians make up the majority...

of new arrivals to Minnesota. I meet more people who have moved here from Iowa, Wisconsin, Chicago or the Dakotas. The Californians I have met have all been Liberals.

That "Californicate" expression was being used in Oregon and Washington State way back in the early 80's. And I'll bet it's being used a lot in Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Las Vegas and Arizona right now.

On Edit: I think folks from Northern California are more likely to find Minnesota appealing than Southern Californians would. For what that's worth...

[SmileyBoy]

18. I'm not talking about Californians moving in...

I'm talking about conservative, upper-class whites (from mainly the Sun Belt) moving in. "The New White Flight", so to speak. I'm talking about people from all around the Sun Belt and other places in the west, etc. that are moving in and voting republican.

[Zookeeper]

19. I haven't read the book, but I understand the "White Flight" part.

However, I'm not aware of an influx from Sun Belt states (I would think our weather would be a huge issue). And the Twin Cities aren't that lily-white anymore.

I actually do have a copy of "Fast Food Nation," and I will check out the reference.

I suppose the term "Californicate" could be taken a couple of ways.

[keep_left]

24. Don't be too unwilling to give Minnesotans...

some of the credit for that, too. The suburbanization is, as you correctly stated, a postwar phenomenon. Remember that the Southdale mall complex in Edina was the first enclosed mall in the world. (And it doubled as a fallout shelter--I'm not kidding!). You're right, though, that it has been accelerating in recent years.

Isn't there another author who has written about "Californication" as well? He wrote about L.A. and SoCal in general. "City of Quartz" was, I think, one of his books.

[no name no slogan]

16. Part of it's an over-assumption by the Repubs, IMHO

They like to point out that Shrub only lost to Gore by a couple of points in 2000, but they also neglect the fact that Nader got over 5% of the vote in 2000, too.

IMHO Nader or a Green candidate will only get 1-2% statewide this year, with the remainder going to Kerry. He'll win Minnesota by 5%, minimum, if things continue the way they're going.

Also, the DFL is re-energized at ALL levels this year. There's a couple different projects to help retake the state house this year, and lots of newly motivated activists from the Dean and Kucinich campaigns. I know of several political newbies who are precinct chairs, SD & CD board members, and state Central Committee delegates/alternates-- not to mention delegates to the National Convention as well!

And then there's folk like me who have been inactive for twelve years coming back to the party, too! Even though the presidential nomination is a foregone conclusion, most of us are sticking around and helping to motivate other DFLers to send a few Republicans packing this fall.

[cothomps]

17. Minnesota Voting...

The last few elections in Minnesota also had the Independent/Reform party that was picking up some steam - I know a few "Democratic" leaning Minnesotans that voted IP just to maintain thier status.

Heck, I did the same for the Greens in 2004 (a Minnesota absentee ballot)

I hope the DFL is re-energized, and maybe people are finally picking up on Wellstone's hope of reorganizing around grassroots efforts.

[northernsoul]

21. several factors converging at once...

1) Lots of folks migrating here from the Sun / Bible Belt. Why? Because the Republicans have wrecked the economies of those states and now they have to come here to our alleged "frozen socialist hellhole" to find decent jobs. Naturally, a lot of them go right to work on wreaking the same political an economic havoc that forced them to leave their Red State homelands in the first place.
This migration creates demand for:
2) The rise of the outer suburbs / exurbs, with their attendant Applebees, stripmalls, and cul-de-sac anonymity. These places often serve as a sort of cultural and economic feedback loop where all "real" people are white and gainfully in employed in middle management and share the same values and assumptions of that demographic. By contrast: poor people, people of color, and people are just plain "different" become an increasingly abstract and dehumanized "other", who when not being completely ignored are to be feared and resented.
The utter soulessness of these locales fuels the demand for:
3) Mega-Churches - where the cultural feedback loop of prosperous white folk gets a divine endorsement from Jesus Christ himself.

There's a lot more in play, but this is a glipse at the factors I'bve been thinking about.

* This post is in no way intended to rip the good, decent people in the state of MN who've happened to move here from a "Red" state, live in an affluent suburb, or attend a church with a large congregation. What I'm trying to show is how several social forces, in aggregate, have provided the GOP with a toehold in our state.

[cothomps]

22. MInnesota Migrations..

From my time up there, the majority of "new immigrants" (or "Republican Refugees", if you will) actually came from the plains states. I met a lot of people from North and South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, etc.

...and Iowa. Anyplace where Republicans are in charge of 'the economy' leads to nothing but tax cut policy - then when the only industries can't pay enough to keep college graduates in the state, away go the kids.

I hate to say it, but my home state addicted to the tax-cut-to-solve-all-problems program. The Republicans push 'tax cut, tax cut, tax cut' to keep businesses in the state - never mind the sheer fact that the only businesses that care about that are the low paying ones that view labor as a cost, not an asset.

Minnesota put some money into good programs and had a little luck with the Twin Cities having some 'knowledge economy' in place. The late 1990s in Minneapolis was an incredible place to be.

[keep_left]

23. That's an excellent point.

You mention all the people from ND, SD, etc. Several of those states are known for having all sorts of tax exemptions and other giveaways for employers like credit card companies. Of course, those companies are heavily automated and employ a relatively small number of people, usually at very low pay.

Having attended the U of M and seen the trend firsthand, I can tell you that ND's/SD's main export is its young people. That has been accelerated by the Red River flood disaster a few years ago, which created a large exodus of people out of ND in particular. (Grand Forks has never fully recovered).

[northernsoul]

25. Companies don't come here for the weather

The reason there are so many Fortune 500 companies in the Twin Cities is because of a highly educated workforce, a top-notch quality of life, and a thriving cultural scene - some of which is due to government investment.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. Northernsoul, your observations

agree exactly with mine.

Coming back to my home state after nineteen years away, I find it much more suburbanized, much less homogenous, and much more ridden with fundamentalists. I'm old enough to remember when it seemed that 90% of the people were either reasonable mainstream Lutherans or reasonable mainstream Catholics.

When I was in junior and senior high school, there was one boy who was a Jehovah's Witness, and every time we had to give science reports, he would somehow work an anti-evolution diatribe in there--even in physics class, which was a stretch. We all thought he was crazy and annoying.

My only consolation is that Minnesota has not yet deteriorated as badly as Oregon.