What’s the Matter with Minnesota?

Moderate State Provides Two Radical Presidential Candidates and a Preview of a Federal Government Shutdown

Minnesota is a beautiful state.  It is bracingly cold in the winter, it has wonderful lakes, it produced a national treasure in Garrison Keillor.  It is populated with the descendants of serious, hard working, warm and friendly  immigrants from northern Europe.  And now for some reason it has become ground zero for the deep divisions that characterize American politics and government fiscal matters.

First of all, its two term Governor Tim Pawlenty, who must have governed somewhat in the middle has joined the Presidential race and is attempting to reinvent himself as a radical conservative.  Then there is the real radical conservative, Rep.  Michelle Bachmann who has also joined the race. Despite a political resume that pales in comparison to Mr. Pawlenty it is she whose radical policies are so far outside the mainstream that she, rather than Mr. Pawlenty has the support of many dedicated conservatives.

Finally we come to state government itself.  Conservative Republicans took control of the state legislature but the state also elected former Democratic Senator Mark Dayton as Governor.  The result, as expected, has been a total breakdown of fiscal management.  The state has failed to pass a budget and is now in the process of shutting down all services and activities that are not considered essential to public health and safety.  The parties involved have taken to the airway and the press to state their case.

As Politico reports.

The senate majority leader, Republican Amy Koch, ripped Dayton for refusing to drop his plan to slap an income tax increase on people who earn more than $1 million annually, while Democrats charged that the GOP was holding state residents hostage to its demands for social policy changes, including new restrictions on abortion.

and 

    Minnesota Democratic party chairman Ken Martin took to MSNBC to affix the blame for the shutdown on the state’s previous governor, Tim Pawlenty, who is seeking the 2012 GOP presidential nomination

 

and

In a sign of just how divided the two sides are — and how petty the fight has gotten — Zellers ripped Dayton in separate interviews for having an aide deliver his budget offer to Republicans on Thursday night. Zellers said he and Koch made their offer to the governor in person.

Presumably this will end, and how it ends may well signal how the same standoff at the Federal level ends.  That will still not answer The Dismal Political Economist’s question, “why Minnesota?”.