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Channeling his inner Mondale: Minnesota DFL’s Pro-Israel history foretold Biden’s passion
A lot of younger people I talk to today scratch their heads at the notion that, as President Joe Biden argues, the State of Israel is a liberal cause. After all, Republicans support Israel with more uniformity and fewer reservations than Democrats do. The long roots of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s pro-Israel history help us […]
Don’t run, Dean
U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips has strong qualities as a politician and public servant. He is forceful and appealing, he doesn’t hate on anyone, and he has showed intestinal fortitude at important moments. He is the Democrat who finally got over the hump and won a congressional district that long had frustrated his party’s hopes — […]
How Walz and the Dems can use policy and politics to shape the future
“We will tax, tax, spend, spend, elect, elect.” Those are the legendary words attributed to Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest advisers. To Republicans, Hopkins’s words reveal the threat of a Democratic Party prepared to use fiscal policy to reward its favored constituencies in a form of patronage politics. Democrats ought to […]
Rep. Ilhan Omar makes her move into the mainstream
Only six months ago, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s future looked cloudy, her political base shaken. She had barely fended off a primary challenge. Her political judgments appeared questionable. Her critics appeared to have grown in number. Now House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his Republican allies have shoved her off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It […]
If you detest what DeSantis is doing to academic freedom in Florida, look no further than Hamline
Liberals are aghast at Gov. Ron DeSantis’s attacks on academic freedom in Florida’s public education system. He is placing sworn enemies of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) — the current term for the idealistic project of making America’s institutions not only progressive but actively antiracist — in positions of power over his state’s public colleges […]
How Minnesota Democrats reversed their fortunes
Minnesota’s DFL party used to be sad. They lost five straight gubernatorial elections between 1990 and 2006, and they were a party in decay. I remember the pathetic election night interviews where Democrats would say, “Let’s wait for the Iron Range vote to come in.” Good luck with that. So how did the DFL turn […]
Will Minnesota Republicans get tired of losing?
The fish rots from the head down, it might appear. The Minnesota GOP’s disastrous choice of Scott Jensen as their gubernatorial nominee this year seemed an unavoidable drag on their statewide slate of candidates. He drew 44.6% of the vote in what was supposed to be a great Republican year. Long before Election Day, Jensen […]