Who will build the party of the Iron Range?

The legislative elections on the Iron Range are usually only competitive if there is a DFL primary. That’s not to say that the Iron Range is excessively liberal or that there aren’t any Republicans around, it’s just that the DFL party structure dominates state politics around here, and has for half a century. Now, I’m been a part of that structure a long time but I’ll step out of my own politics and preferences to take a look at things from a Republican perspective.

What’s always baffled me about the Republican party on the Iron Range is that they fail to build on the limited advantages they have. Yes, it’s harder to recruit candidates if they are likely to lose, but the local GOP has completely failed to make even a small foothold in northern Minnesota when maybe they could have kept things closer around here.

For one thing, looking at this regionally, the best GOP candidate I’ve seen this upcoming cycle is John Larson, who is challenging State Rep. and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm). Sertich is the highest ranking DFL rep in the area, the youngest, and the best with the media. Of all the Iron Range DFLers, he is the least likely to be picked off. But the Republicans are sending up their most legitimate challenger in this race. Larson runs Palmer’s bar in Hibbing, a popular spot for working class folks. (And, amusingly, his website does not include one single use of the word “Republican”).

Now, Larson lives in Hibbing and is running on his own merits in his own district, but the fact that no one in the GOP has made an overarching plan to gain footholds in the rural swing areas around the Iron Range is perplexing, as is the fact that they seem oblivious to which incumbent DFLers are vulnerable and which aren’t. It is further perplexing that Range Republicans have yet to figure out how to run labor moderates instead of social issues candidates. A pro-labor Republican who is socially conservative and business focused would probably improve the GOP index by 15-20 points (you know, from 80-20 to 60-40; not great, but a start). Many of my Republican friends vote DFL on local races just because the GOP candidates aren’t credible.

I am a student of history, demography, political science and sociology. I look over to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and I see a dwindling mining economy propped up by tourism and various hail mary job-creation projects. The UP is running about 20 years ahead of us on the boom and bust cycle. There are four state senate seats in Michigan’s UP. Two are held by Democrats and two are held by Republicans. The UP voted with Clinton through the 1990s and with Bush in the 2000s. It is a classic rural swing area.

So, for Republicans, why haven’t you figured out how to turn this place into the U.P.?

And, for Democrats, what are you doing to defend the enormous advantages you’ve held since World War II? Some DFLers have no idea how they got into power in the first place.

Where is the party building? The party that builds on the Range in the next ten years owns it for the next 50.

Comments

  1. Grace Kelly says

    Shhhh! What do think you are, a professor or something? We haven’t even fixed the bridges yet.

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