And in the end …

I honestly thought I would write a comprehensive post about the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota before the end of the year, but it appears that I won’t have that chance. There’s a lot of information we just don’t know yet.

There will be lots of armchair analysis from both sides on this race, but I have boiled it down to this: IF Al Franken wins, he wins the way he deserved to win. IF Norm Coleman loses, he loses the way he deserved to lose.

Keep in mind I actually like Al Franken, and not just because he was my party’s nominee. I like the writer and entertainer Al Franken and believe he is sincere in his desire to change careers and become a Senator. He could end up being a good senator. But he showed some serious self-inflicted weaknesses during the campaign, a slight lack of the easy-going nature Minnesotans prefer and, of course, the hours and hours of footage of him doing and saying things that are outrageous. You can’t negotiate around the fact that the other side had footage of Franken saying most of George Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television. Franken is a celebrity new to elected politics. A tight win and the shallow public support that would come with the outcome will give Franken an opportunity to sink or swim on his own merits. Six good years of public service and he could reverse any lingering negativity seen today; six bad years and he goes the way of Jesse Ventura. Give Al a chance. Al, you’re on the clock.

As for Norm Coleman, the greatest criticism about him has not been extremism but malleability. I learned at Christmas that many of my relatives voted for Dean Barkely because they didn’t like Franken and because they knew if Coleman won he’d just vote with the prevailing political winds of a Democratic government. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement. To lose by such a tight margin with support in the low 40s is a poetic conclusion to a career that has been shaped by jumping at opportunities and surviving by a mix of luck and calculation.

Minnesota’s 2008 U.S. Senate race wasn’t especially pretty, but it was full of all of the elements of great fiction, drama or poetry. This story, however, is not yet complete.

Comments

  1. I am still very surprised that Franken did as well as he did. Even though Al had the benefit of a big coattail effect from Obama, I still figured Coleman would win by five points. While Coleman doesn’t seem like a Minnesotan, Franken seems like a lot less of one. I think the only sure thing is that whichever party loses will accuse the other of stealing the election. I have a friend who is a volunteer lawyer for the Coleman campaign and he said that the campaign told him before the recounting started that they expected the result to change at least a couple of times before things were decided.

    On another note, I bought your book and finished the whole thing while in Minnesota over Christmas. I enjoyed the book and had heard different variations of many of the Iron Range stories previously, but also read quite a few I hadn’t heard before.

    I agree with what you say about kids leaving the region to a certain extent, but disagree on another point. You brought up in your book how many parents celebrate their kids getting a $35,000 a year job out of college in the Twin Cities instead of encouraging them to move home and help build the region they grew up in. While we need more kids to stay in the region and it does seem silly to move to a big city to join the rat race and become one of a few million doing the same thing, we need more kids to move away from home, travel and learn a lot, and then come back home and start businesses.

    If enough of those businesses become successful, there will eventually be opportunities for people to spend their entire lives in one place. It may take 25 years, but it can happen eventually. But if we don’t have any people who have lived in other places, traveled the world, seen what other people and businesses need, the region will turn into even more of a place where the only jobs there are are low paying and related to tourism. The days of anybody who wants a well paying job at the mine being able to get one are probably gone forever.

    When I graduated from college seven years ago, I had the intention of spending the rest of my life living and working in the Twin Cities. For the first few years, I was fairly happy going to work every day, going to happy hours, being able to attend any Gopher or Viking football game, and visiting home often, especially in the summer. I started to get a little bit bored with that lifestyle in 2005 and just decided to pack my bags and move to Texas. After about a year down here with a much better job than I had in the Twin Cities, I looked back and started to think of what a pointless life I had lived. I was now traveling a lot, learning a lot more, and realizing what a sheltered life I had lived prior to that. Being in the business of accounting, I got to see how many different businesses were run.

    Getting back to how to build the region, we need kids from this region (who are a lot smarter than I am) to get experiences similar to what I’ve had. Of the businesses I’ve seen, there were quite a few of them that could easily operate in Northern Minnesota. For example, one of my clients is an $80 million medical device manufacturing company in the northern suburbs of Dallas. They have a few customers in the Dallas area, but the vast majority of their customers are elsewhere. They ship all of their products via FedEx. There’s no reason why somebody couldn’t open up a similar company in a rural area as long as there is FedEx service. Another client I’ve worked on is a small company in the Silicon Valley that makes bank security software. All of their customers just download the software over the internet. They had a few salespeople who were based in large cities around the country, but the rest of their employees were helpdesk workers, accountants, and programmers. There’s no reason why a business like that couldn’t succeed in a rural area.

    With Essar making steel on the west range, it would be nice to have somebody that has worked with T Boone Pickens decide that the west range might be a good place to make windmills. With Polymet mining precious metals on the east range, it would be nice to have somebody who has worked in the Silicon Valley who could find a way to turn those metals into something to be used in computers, lithiom ion batteries, etc. It would be nice to have students from Northern Minnesota who attend schools like Stanford and MIT be able to take the knowledge they gained in college and while working at Apple or Google to open up a business in their hometown.

    The problem with our economy is that our culture and economy resemble Detroit a lot more than the Silicon Valley. Instead of being quick to accept change, everybody hangs onto deeply held beliefs from generations ago. Instead of having an entrepreneurial culture and going out and making things happen, we have a culture of waiting for things to happen and wondering why they never do. This can change over time, but it will take at least 20 years.

  2. Todd —
    Thanks for reading the book and for your excellent comments. I actually agree with you. The book might sound a touch more boosteristic, but the difficulty of moving a culture from reaction to action is no small thing. Technically, I left the area before returning, albeit very briefly. I probably would have been gone longer if Christina wasn’t back here. It’s good to get that outside perspective first, but what motivated me in the book was the prevailing sense that kids who leave not only won’t, but SHOULDN’T return. We are doomed if that remains true. And I do think our resources, low cost of living and quality of life aspects makes the Range a viable area in the future. But there are some tough times ahead in getting everyone up to speed with change.

    Anyway, thanks for the great comment.

  3. I agree that the culture will be difficult to change. In fact, it may be impossible to change for those over 40. However, there is hope for those under 40.

    Thanks for the clarification on the part about kids leaving and in some cases being encouraged not to return. If somebody is ambitious but not a risk taker, it’s probably in their best interests at this point to live in a big metropolitan area. However, if somebody is a risk taker they should be encouraged to move home after living elsewhere.

    I suppose in your case as a writer, there wouldn’t be any huge advantage to living in a bigger area. You may be able to teach at a bigger college in a big city, but you can author books from the Iron Range as well as you could from New York or Los Angeles.

  4. To Todd: I quibble with the generation stereotype you presented. It’s true that the older we get, the more set in our ways we become…or is it? Not so for everyone. I wonder about those under 40 seeking the life-style of the older generation and not willing to give up some things to make the changes needed for settling in smaller communities. We need flexibility in all ages and openness to change for the more rural areas to grow and remain viable. Do you think that the majority of the youth of today are willing to go just where the job is or do you think they want something more? Big cities offer a lot that isn’t found in rural areas. I think it’s a bit more complex than just locating the jobs in rural areas. VH

  5. Anonymous,

    There are some that will want to go to place like NY, SF Bay, or the Twin Cities regardless and that’s fine. I’m of the belief that where the jobs locate, the other things will develop around the jobs. Now obviously downtown Hibbing or downtown Duluth for that matter is never going to offer the “nightlife” that downtown Minneapolis is going to. But the nightlife wears off for most people once they get out of their twenties. If a company located in Grand Rapids, Hibbing, Virginia, or Duluth with 50 white collar jobs paying $50k per year or more, I bet they’d get at least 5-10 applications for every position. What other “changes” are you talking about that younger people might not make when settling in smaller communities?

  6. Todd: Good points and I fully agree with your thinking process. My own son moved back to Duluth to raise his young family and luckily, he and his wife were able to work here too. There are others wanting to move back but can’t because the jobs are not available. The “changes” referred to relate to the type of life people choose– the culture–art, music, etc–that many depend upon in larger vicinities. The Iron Range communities, being smaller communities, struggle with providing this type of environment more than, say, Duluth. But the older “the youth” are, the less that matters–agreed. What about those unwilling to make changes to a small town or rural area, stuck in the theory that bigger is better? I think there is some of that. Well…we could go on and on…but your ideas for pulling in those jobs are great. Now the next step is to get to those creator of jobs and make it happen! BTW…why are you not living here? Happy New Year! VH

  7. I agree that there are some that just won’t want to live in a smaller area for the reasons you listed, just like there are some who don’t want to live in a bigger area because of traffic and other reasons. There’s always going to be people on both sides. At my 10 year reunion two years ago, I was quite surprised at how many smart kids had decided to stay in the area at wages far less than they would make in a larger city. In some cases, it was probably because they were afraid to venture too far from home. In most cases though, it was probably that they were willing to make economic sacrifices to stay in the area where they grew up. I think there’s more than enough demand for jobs in the Arrowhead. There’s just a very small supply of them. Down here in Texas, companies still have plenty of job openings in the rough economy. If somebody has average qualifications, they will be able to find a good job rather quickly. In Northern Minnesota, businesses get so many applications for every opening that it drives the wages down quite a ways.

    I will be living up there again, hopefully before summer. I’m just trying to sell a condo down here before moving back.

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