Don't underestimate the power of populism in Minnesota politics

Lots of people have wondered how in the world Minnesotans elected Jesse Ventura governor a dozen years ago. But have you ever wondered how the other two major political leaders in the state at the time could have been the senatorial odd couple of Rod Grams and Paul Wellstone?

And how all three chaps respectively differed from one another by a mathematically impossible 359 degrees? How in the universe could three such seemingly disparate people get elected by the very same voters and wind up serving simultaneously?

The short answer is that they were all populists of one sort or another; an interpretation made possible by populism's featuring of almost as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins. In this instance, Grams was keenly skeptical of Big Government, Wellstone was keenly skeptical of Big Business, and Ventura was and remains keenly (albeit entrepreneurially) skeptical of motley concoctions of things, starting with the Warren Commission's report on President John Kennedy's assassination and not ending with his 9/11 suspicions about the Bush administration. (Un-skeptical guys and establishmentarian politicos, it's fair to say, usually don't name their newest television show "Conspiracy Theory.")

My first up-close sense of Minnesota populism came early on, when I moved to the Twin Cities in 1974 to work with the University of Minnesota's new president, C. Peter Magrath. A political scientist who really was politically savvy, he immediately grasped that this was not the kind of place that looked kindly on public servants being chauffeured around in fancy black cars. So instead of something like a Cadillac, he got a red Ford, which he mostly drove himself.

In what other ways has Minnesota been less the predictable liberal state we're often assumed to be, and more a place where common folks (to borrow caricatures) are extra-disposed to challenge the elites?

A terrific example was the years-long drive to get Target Field built for the Twins. The same holds for the lead-up and construction of Xcel Energy Center for the Wild. And if past proves prologue, as it likely will, the same will be the result when it comes to a new Vikings stadium. The fact that the first two venues actually and physically came to be built, winning significant and necessary public subsidies in the process, is not the telling point here. Nor is the fact that at the end of the proverbial day, the Vikings probably will have a new, tax-underwritten home, too. Rather, the key point is that so much of the opposition has been based, not merely in allergic reactions to higher taxes, but in viscerally powerful distaste for using public dollars to make "rich owners even richer."

This is not to claim that Minnesota is unique where such themes and reactions are concerned; only that they can be unusually potent in this part of the country. The fact, moreover, that loads of Minnesotans have grown quite fond of Target Field and the "X" might be fairly viewed as further evidence that neither politics nor life is linear.

Or consider a tiny sampling of additional Minnesota politicians over the years, as well as their personas and trappings.

There was Rudy Perpich, demonstrably of the Iron Range. Al Quie and his soul-deep confidence in the good sense of everyday people. Rudy Boschwitz and his plaid shirts - never mind his chain-store successes. Now Tim Walz and Tom Emmer, miles apart on a roster of issues, but each "real guys." (That's a compliment, by the way.) And, of course, Tea Party leader and favorite Michele Bachmann, who connects deeply with legions of men and women who haven't had the pleasure of dining recently at the Minneapolis Club.

The Tea Party movement is American populism epitomized; a prairie-fired but peaceful revolt, in this iteration, against governmental giantism. Frankly, given Minnesota's populist undergirding, it might be thought surprising that the movement isn't stronger in the state than it seems to be -- although a strong case can be made that more fervent manifestations haven't taken hold here precisely because our supply of ready-made, populist-natured politicians is comparatively robust.

One of the reasons I genuinely like and respect elected officials is that they are skilled and comfortable in talking and dealing with wide varieties of people, and many of the best really enjoy doing so. One of my favorites of the genre (not that we agreed on much) was the late Ann Richards, the former Democratic governor of Texas. At the risk of name dropping, we were on a task force together about a decade ago and were forced to spend the better part of an afternoon hanging out in a small airport waiting for a plane. But while the rest of us mostly stayed put, in close proximity to one another, Ann was all over the place, talking, glad-handing and laughing with everyone in sight even though we were nowhere near Texas. The spirit was in her.

Ann, as you may recall, first came to national attention at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, where she tried to beat the laughing hell out of George Bush the Elder by saying he had been "born on third base and thought he hit a triple," having also come into to this life with a "silver foot in his mouth." As it turned out her jabs and left-crosses failed in a landslide, as the Brahmin Bush won the presidency easily that year. Nevertheless, she was elected Lone Star governor two years later -- a job she then proceeded to lose just four years afterward to another Bush from Yale.

What might she have made of Minnesota politics? Would she have thought that Minnesota voters would elect a liberal -- no, make that a "satirist" -- who, like her, was a bit of a comedian, who had been known to joke about Republicans and conservatives on national television?

I concede this is speculation: She would have said, "Nah. It'll never happen."

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Mitch Pearlstein is founder and president of Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis.

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