How Minnesotan!

At Boom Island Park on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, with the temperature hovering in the single digits and snow falling, Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of Minnesota's two woman US senators, has announced her candidacy for US president in the 2020 election. Here's some very interesting perspectives on her candidacy from two of Minnesota's leading political pundits, David Schultz and Eric Black. We're going to watch closely as the Democrats proceed to move toward selecting a nominee. As far as we're concerned, they self-destructed and lost the 2016 presidential election and they continue to rehash the same damn issues.

Sigurd, an essence of Minnesota, at risk to mining with Sen. Klobuchar's help?

Photo by J. Harrington

We haven't lived in Minnesota long enough to have watched the Vikings lose the Super Bowl any of their four appearances (all in the 1970s), but we have followed politics long enough to remember Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, and Walter Mondale all failed as presidential candidates, although two of them, Humphrey and Mondale, served as vice president.

We have long wondered if "Minnesota Nice" doesn't play all that well outside Minnesota, but then our East Coast brashness doesn't play that well with Minnesotans. The older we get, the more impatient we become with those who's observance of "the niceties" interferes with moving the ball down the field. But maybe the concept of being Minnesotan grows on one very slowly. We were reading Minnesota's quintessential poet, Robert Bly, before we started this posting and will return to his Collected Poems as soon as we push publish. Don't hold us to it but we're starting to wonder if this Minnesota or New England as home is actually a both / and rather than an or. We're not sure how that may play out on the political scene. We do believe that Minnesota has moved more toward the right than it was when we first moved here. We also recognize that we may have correspondingly moved toward the left as neoliberalism replaced the real thing.

The Great Society

By Robert Bly

Dentists continue to water their lawns even in the rain:

Hands developed with terrible labor by apes   

Hang from the sleeves of evangelists;

There are murdered kings in the light-bulbs outside movie theaters:   

The coffins of the poor are hibernating in piles of new tires.

The janitor sits troubled by the boiler,

And the hotel keeper shuffles the cards of insanity.   

The President dreams of invading Cuba.   

Bushes are growing over the outdoor grills,   

Vines over the yachts and the leather seats.

The city broods over ash cans and darkening mortar.   

On the far shore, at Coney Island, dark children   

Playing on the chilling beach: a sprig of black seaweed,   

Shells, a skyful of birds,

While the mayor sits with his head in his hands.

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