Obama and the Iron Range

I’ve heard that some Range leaders are nervous that Sen. Barack Obama’s underperformance in central Range precincts like Hibbing and Chisholm despite his massive statewide win in the caucuses. (Sen. Hillary Clinton carried those core Range towns about 60/40; Obama carried the western and eastern Iron Range by slim to moderate margins). These Range leaders fear that this result is indacitive of general election problems that the DFL ticket could face in northeastern Minnesota. The insinuation is that the race, ethnicity and/or background of Obama will turn off the culturally isolated DFL voters of the Range. This is an old theory and I hold hope that it proves false. I see two factors on the ground.

1) Once people are reassured that those rumors from e-mail forwards that Obama is a Muslim or secret radical are false, they begin to warm a bit — especially when the policy differences between Obama and McCain are brought up. Keep in mind: Iron Rangers use the Internet less than people elsewhere and watch less cable news. In some cases, one person with dial-up internet brings a stack of print outs to his coffee klatch to read “the news.” That “Obama won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance” crap cut deep up here.

2) Obama is engaging young people on the Range in a way I have never seen a national candidate do before. Without prompting, phone calls, direct mail or “voter indexing,” young people are coming to the conclusion: “Obama is my guy. How do I vote?” I think that the earlier misgivings from older voters I discussed are offset by younger and new voters. The only problem with the Range is that we have done a poor job of keeping young people around, which is reason for concern.

The Iron Range is being forced to go through cultural change very quickly because of economic and demographic trends around the country and world. Though the region has strangely held its progressive political voting habits, its cultural conservatism is clashing with the notion of a biracial candidate named Barack Obama. I don’t know how this region — or the South, or the state of Ohio, or the Plains states or many other places — will react in the end, but this is a needed conversation that will move our country in the right direction regardless of the outcome.

That is, provided Obama can put this away which is a conversation for the day after the Texas and Ohio primaries.