Election eve & night 2012: Looking ahead, it’s good to look back

As we await official 2012 election results, my mind has been wandering over the past two days.  I’m a self-proclaimed political junkie who drifts between extreme optimism and horrid cynicism.  No doubt, Election 2012 is going to bring mixed results, messages and on-going political turmoil and gridlock.  There is no true light at the end of this god-forsaken tunnel.

But it is our tunnel. It is our hole and for all of us to dig out.  Not one by one, not by leaving some behind, but collectively. Together.

My guess is we won’t even know the end result of this presidential election for at least 10 to 14 days, as Ohio’s provisional ballots are contested and counted.  It’s really the last thing this country needs, another presidential election in which the winner is disputed, in which Barack Obama or Mitt Romney face both a fractured Congress and nation.

In Minnesota, we’ve seen both sides of all this madness in the proposed amendments.  While Facebook friends may grow disgruntled by the recent onslaught of new cover and profile photos and public policy debate, this is good stuff.  Social media has lifted these critical issues out of the back rooms and into our homes.  And that should be applauded.

All I truly know is that no matter what transpires after today and tonight, these discussions should not end and will not.  And this state and its people will continue to address the issues of gay and lesbian rights, as well as designing fair and just ways to vote.

Many of you may seem overloaded and desiring a reprieve.  I’m saying it’s only just begun.

Remembering the ’98 Ventura win…and the issues

In November 1998, Jesse Ventura might not really have shocked the world by winning Minnesota’s gubernatorial election, but it was quite a stunner in Minnesota and beyond.  Time magazine captured this November surprise. Who would have predicted it?

I did. The problem was there was no one to hear me; nowhere was my grand prediction documented.  There was no Facebook. Ventura won with 37% of the Minnesota vote.  Republican Norm Coleman followed with 34%, while early ’98 favorite and DFL-endorsed Hubert H. “Skip” Humphrey slipped to just 28%.

At the time just after the September primaries which elevated both Coleman and Humphrey past party challengers, Ventura – officially the Reform Party candidate but really an independent – had garnered just more than 10% in a Minneapolis Star Tribune poll.  But by October 20, Ventura had jumped to 21%. And after a series of very effective debates against his stuffy, predictable and cautious challengers, Jesse “the Body” was gaining steam.

In the week before the election, I joined a quiet meeting in Gaylord at the Sibley County Courthouse basement, but one news flash stuck out: Sibley County’s U of M Extension agent reported that nearly all of the area homemakers she surveyed were planning to vote for Ventura.  In this rural and conservative county, there was spiked anger at politics-as-usual.  Ventura’s slogan and libertarian style fit: “Don’t vote for politics as usual.”

McLeod and Sibley County voters were among those to lead the Ventura revolution. Consider this odd list of counties which saw a majority (or near-majority) of voters swing Ventura’s way in ‘98:

1.        Isanti                     52.9%

2.        McLeod                52.8%

3.        Chisago                52.8%

4.        Wright                  51.4%

5.        Sherburne            51.2%

6.        Anoka                   50.7%

7.        Sibley                    49.7%

8.        Kanabec               49.6%

Ventura’s strange brand of ’98 politics included support for gay rights and gays in the military, for medicinal marijuana, for opening a debate on the legalization of prostitution, support for public schools but against teachers’ unions, and for an overall limited/libertarian style of government. And despite his U.S. Navy Seal tenure and patriotic wave, as governor he vetoed a bill to require recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.

It was Ventura’s style that captured disenfranchised voters’ attention in ’98.  It’s his past issues – particularly on gay rights – that have resurfaced again in 2012.  He and wife Terry were featured in a September TV commercial for Minnesotans United For All Families, pledging to “Vote NO” on the upcoming marriage amendment.

"I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people — not oppress them", Ventura said.  “Government should not be telling people who to fall in love with.”

And this is our new state representative?

Despite McLeod County’s 1998 vote for a very socially liberal Ventura, it’s bright red. It’s a yellow dog Republican district.  Consider some of these positions by Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe), who is poised to win today against the very bright and capable (but young) DFL challenger, Logan Campa.

At an April “Pro Marriage Amendment Forum” in Waconia, co-sponsored by “reformed” homosexual Kevin Petersen, Gruenhagen labeled all gays and lesbians as “unhealthy sexual perverts.”  A sitting Minnesota state representative speaking these words?  This one-term legislator’s long, rambling letters to the editor in Glencoe newspapers may be legendary in McLeod County, but most Sibley County residents are just getting to know him.  As a Sibley County resident, the redistricting moved our citizenry into one shared by much of McLeod County, one which left Gruenhagen as the sitting “incumbent.” 

My final glimpse of Gruenhagen’s strange demeanor and words came at an October debate in Glencoe, and from his odd opening to his final, bizarre words tying pornography to domestic abuse, his political views continue to range from embarrassing to unsettling.  He is oddly placed as a state rep, most interested and out-spoken on health care and climate change.  But he’ll likely be a winner again tonight.

Looking ahead

At times it seems as if we’ve moved so far beyond that odd, yet historic election of 1998.  But as a nation, we’ve become more polarized.  And within of Minnesota, the marriage and voter ID amendments have added to this discourse.  Add to that the influence of money in state and national politics has grown beyond distasteful; but there are few signs of slowing it all down.

Tired of it all? Well, get ready for a tumultuous four years.

Finally, the most important speech any of us will likely hear this election season is yet to come – the concession speech of either Obama or Romney.  Like Al Gore of 2000 and John McCain of 2008, it is that special, often once-in-a-lifetime chance for a prominent national voice to bring all of us together. 

Or to at least try.  And whether that speech comes in the early hours of November 7 or after yet another prolonged election challenge and counting of provisional ballots in Ohio, we’ve gotta keep trying.