We are down to the wire here on this election, folks. I cannot remember an election that drew this much public interest. It’s encouraging to see people involved and active. Like everyone else, I eagerly await the results.

I discussed Minnesota politics last week, so here is a look at other Upper Midwestern states and some features of their upcoming elections.

In the 2000 presidential election, three distinct regions gave their electoral votes to Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore: the three states on the Pacific Coast; a contiguous block of Midwestern states mostly bordering the Great Lakes, consisting of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa; and all the Northeastern states north of the Virginias except for New Hampshire. Hawaii and New Mexico also went for Gore.

Of the five Midwestern states that Gore won in 2002, only Illinois is expected to be won easily by Kerry. Newsweek’s November 1 issue shows Iowa leaning toward Bush, Wisconsin a toss-up (along with Minnesota), and Michigan leaning toward Kerry. A New York Times map compiling poll results shows Minnesota leaning toward Kerry but Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa as toss-ups. Both sources show the Dakotas solidly for Bush in the polls.

How important is the Upper Midwest in the entire race? Here’s a list of states in the region by number of electoral votes:

Minnesota (10 votes)
Wisconsin (10 votes)
Iowa (7 votes)
North Dakota (3 votes)
South Dakota (3 votes)

That gives the region 33 electoral votes, a modest six percent of the national total of 538. In comparison, California has 55 votes and Texas 34.

Other Regional Races

In South Dakota, Democratic Senator Tom Daschle is in danger of losing his seat to Republican challenger John Thune. That would make him the first Senate party leader to lose his seat in 52 years. The other U.S. Senate races in the region appear likely to go to incumbents: Russ Feingold (D) in Wisconsin, Byron Dorgan (D) in North Dakota, and Charles Grassley (R) in Iowa. Currently eight of the ten U.S. senators in the region are Democrats. The Dakotas and Wisconsin have two Democrats each, while Minnesota and Iowa have one senator from each party.

I won’t go into detail on the U.S. House races, but currently Minnesota and Wisconsin have a general balance between the two parties, Iowa has a majority of Republicans, and each of the representatives from the two Dakotas is a Democrat. There is only one governor’s race in the region. Republican incumbent John Hoeven of North Dakota appears likely to win there.

North Dakota is one of 11 states in the nation that will present voters with a constitutional amendment to restrict marriage to a man and a woman. (Neighboring Montana is another state doing the same.) Polls show the amendment likely to pass. An October 27 Star Tribune article indicates that the state’s major newspapers have endorsed a “no” vote on the issue. An editorial in the Fargo Forum had this to say on October 16: “Amending North Dakota’s constitution to deny or threaten to deny rights to North Dakota citizens contradicts the document’s historic purpose.”

Garrison Keillor’s Liberal Lament

Garrison Keillor, Minnesota native and host of National Public Radio’s “Prairie Home Companion,” is probably the single most important cultural figure in the state (yes, probably more important than Prince). Keillor has thrown his weight and influence behind the Democrats, helping to host events and fundraisers for party politicians at the state and national levels. Keillor’s new book, Homegrown Democrat, published this summer, makes his political bias plain.

I plan on reviewing the book in a future column, but for now I include these two paragraphs from the book:

“Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy–the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.”

I could never have said it better myself.

You can read the first four chapters of Homegrown Democrat at the Prairie Home Web site.

Durenberger Endorses Kerry Health Care Plan

David Durenberger was U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1978 to 1995. During his political career he became a respected expert in health care policy.

In a Star Tribune October 27 opinion piece, Durenberger endorsed John Kerry’s health care plan over President Bush’s plan. Here are excerpts:

“Regardless of how voters view the candidates on all other issues, it is clear that the future of health care costs for Minnesotans has already been determined by President Bush’s record of accomplishment. As a Republican, with some experience, I sincerely regret having to say the record over the last four years and the prescription for reform the president is proposing give me little confidence that this most challenging of all domestic priorities will be adequately addressed over the next four years?.

For people who cannot afford the health insurance they need, for people whose access to care is threatened, the issue of which presidential candidate is most likely to come to their aid is their most important national security issue. It is the national security position on which President Bush and Sen. Kerry differ most and the one on which Kerry has the clearer vision for restoring security to all Americans.”
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Enough already. Thanks for your patience. Now go out and vote.

Next week: A look at the election results.

The 2004 election is only eleven days away, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about it. I step into the discussion of politics gingerly, however, as is my non-confrontational nature. I have my biases, as I will explain, but I also recognize that we are a greatly divided nation and region. I respect others’ political views, while fervently praying that they will see the light. I also take the “fallibilist” point of view that I may be wrong myself. Those ninnies on the other side of the issues may be right, after all, and I may be wrong, darnit. Read the rest of this entry »

Shortly after our long trip from California to Minnesota in July, we set up our household in Northfield, Minnesota. We had bought a townhouse near St. Olaf College, where my wife will begin teaching in February. We began the challenging tasks of unpacking and setting up the house, caring for our then-four-month-old daughter, and continuing to work. I telecommuted for my old employer until the end of August, while my wife handled most of our daughter’s care that month. Read the rest of this entry »

The Upper Midwest is up and out of the way, far northerly, not a crossroads in the way that other Midwestern states such as Indiana and Illinois are. It is separated from the populous East by the Great Lakes, which make it impossible to reach the region from the Northeast in a straight line over land.

The region is actually more northerly than it looks on most maps of the United States. On maps with curving latitude lines, Boston appears to be as far north as Minneapolis-St. Paul. However, Boston is really about the same latitude as northern Iowa. Minneapolis-St. Paul’s position on the 45th parallel of latitude actually makes it as northerly as central Maine and the northern borders of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Seattle is the only major U.S. city farther north. Portland, Oregon, is about the same latitude. Minneapolis-St. Paul is well north of Detroit and Toronto, and only slightly less northern than Montreal.

The northern border of Minnesota is about 300 miles from the Twin Cities–very northerly indeed. A portion of that border runs along the 49th parallel that divides Canada and the United States from here all the way to the Pacific. For an East Coast comparison, this is the same latitude as northern Newfoundland.

It’s interesting to note that at 45 degrees latitude, the Twin Cities is halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, which are at zero and 90 degrees latitude respectively. Europe is generally more northerly. Bordeaux, France, and Venice, Italy, are about the same latitude as the Twin Cities. Asia is generally more southerly. Harbin, China, in the far northern part of that country, and Vladivostok, Russia, are about the same latitude as the Twin Cities.

Climate-wise, the Upper Midwest has the misfortune to be in the center of a continent. So, although the Twin Cities is the same latitude as northern Italy, its weather is far colder. There are no oceans to warm the Arctic air masses as they pour down from the North, and we must dress accordingly.

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When we left Interstate 80 in Des Moines and headed north to Minnesota, we left the main cultural and commercial arteries of the nation. Each mile north put us farther from that main flow of traffic and more toward the center of that region I am calling the Upper Midwest. Read the rest of this entry »