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Dear Alaska:
Nov. 6th, 2008 11:53 amNow that the election is nearly over, and it's come out now that the winker thought Africa was a country, and it appears that you've re-elected a convicted felon as one of your senators, it's time. On behalf of my home state of Minnesota, it is my duty to pass on the title of Political Joke to you.
You may recall that Minnesota first became a punchline back in 1984, when we were the only state to go for our own Walter Mondale. I vividly remember a political cartoon by Jerry Fearing that showed ol' Walt taking refuge from a landslide of Reagan boulders right here. Back then the joke was that Ha ha, those wackos in Minnesota don't understand how good Ronnie Raygun has been for this country, when will they learn? (They had it backwards, of course, but that's beside the point at hand.)
That's all but forgotten now, though; the new joke came in 1990, when, disgusted with both the major party candidates and disarmed by his plain-talking campaign, we elected Jesse Ventura our governor. Much like your current governor, he was popular at first but soon turned out to be pretty embarrassing. There were a lot of factors at work in that race, but the pundits don't much care about that. Just a couple of weeks before this most recent election the prospects for Obama and McCain were being discussed on MSNBC; one commentator laughed and said, "Well, they elected Jesse Ventura!" The message, of course, was that Minnesota is erratic, bewildering, and a bit silly. Also, it snows a lot here. (We have that in common with you, of course. I'll bet, when you're traveling in the lower 48, you get about the same reaction we do when you tell people where you're from. "Oh," followed by a "Brr!" sound and possibly a question about how much snow you had last winter.)
Now that Jesse's been gone for a while and a national campaign has brought you into the limelight, I think it's time for the torch to be passed. True, our re-elected senator is pretty embarrassing, but in a very familiar way. (If the recount turns that race around we may have a chance to be embarrassed in unfamiliar ways.) Like our own politics, I'm sure yours is more complicated on the inside than it appears from the outside, and I sympathize with your protectiveness towards favorite sons and daughters, however misguided. So with commiseration as well as relief, I pass this title on to you; endure it as well as you can, and stay vigilant for the chance to pass it along.
You may recall that Minnesota first became a punchline back in 1984, when we were the only state to go for our own Walter Mondale. I vividly remember a political cartoon by Jerry Fearing that showed ol' Walt taking refuge from a landslide of Reagan boulders right here. Back then the joke was that Ha ha, those wackos in Minnesota don't understand how good Ronnie Raygun has been for this country, when will they learn? (They had it backwards, of course, but that's beside the point at hand.)
That's all but forgotten now, though; the new joke came in 1990, when, disgusted with both the major party candidates and disarmed by his plain-talking campaign, we elected Jesse Ventura our governor. Much like your current governor, he was popular at first but soon turned out to be pretty embarrassing. There were a lot of factors at work in that race, but the pundits don't much care about that. Just a couple of weeks before this most recent election the prospects for Obama and McCain were being discussed on MSNBC; one commentator laughed and said, "Well, they elected Jesse Ventura!" The message, of course, was that Minnesota is erratic, bewildering, and a bit silly. Also, it snows a lot here. (We have that in common with you, of course. I'll bet, when you're traveling in the lower 48, you get about the same reaction we do when you tell people where you're from. "Oh," followed by a "Brr!" sound and possibly a question about how much snow you had last winter.)
Now that Jesse's been gone for a while and a national campaign has brought you into the limelight, I think it's time for the torch to be passed. True, our re-elected senator is pretty embarrassing, but in a very familiar way. (If the recount turns that race around we may have a chance to be embarrassed in unfamiliar ways.) Like our own politics, I'm sure yours is more complicated on the inside than it appears from the outside, and I sympathize with your protectiveness towards favorite sons and daughters, however misguided. So with commiseration as well as relief, I pass this title on to you; endure it as well as you can, and stay vigilant for the chance to pass it along.