The final KAXE "Making Sausage" legislative forum between Reps. John Persell (DFL-Bemidji) and Larry Howes (R-Walker) in District 5A will take place Thursday morning from 8:15 to 9 a.m. on 91.7 KAXE Grand Rapids/90.5 KBXE Bemidji/89.9 Brainerd and kaxe.org.

Tune in for what has been an interesting series of open format discussions between the candidates in the hotly contested Senate District 5 "Incumb-off."

This Saturday on "Between You and Me," KAXE's Saturday morning music and conversation program, the topic is "election stories." These would be nonpartisan stories from candidates, campaign workers and voters about the lighter side of our terribly messy democracy. Looking forward to writing for that one.

Today at noon Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) will debate challenger and former Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL) in the fourth and final debate. Fittingly, the debate will be held at Mesabi Range Community and Technical College in Virginia, one of the hubs of the Iron Range region.

As has been the case throughout the election, The Uptake provides live footage of the debate to MinnesotaBrown.com:



All signs point to a very close election. Media polls have recently shown Nolan with a small lead.

UPDATE: I was away for the day at my kids' school and missed the fact that the feed was down (according to the Uptake, due to Hurricane Sandy). The archived debate is now available above.

My only real knowledge of the race for Congress in Wisconsin's 7th District comes from what spills over into the Duluth TV market. Rep. Sean Duffy (R) faces Pat Kreitlow (D).

The district itself bears a lot of similarity to my home district in MN-8. WI-7 is rustic, northern, was abnormally Democratic for decades before falling to an abnormally conservative challenger in the Republican wave of 2010.

In MN-8 we got Rep. Chip Cravaack, a straight-laced jet pilot with giant mitts. Over in WI-7 they got Duffy, an unintentionally smarmy small town prosecutor who was on the Boston season of MTV's "The Real World" and who hails from a family of show lumberjacks.

Cravaack won his 2010 race with an impressive under-the-radar campaign. Duffy, on the other hand, attracted a lot of attention for his now-famous "lumberjack" ads.

More after the jump

MinnPost's Marlys Harris has a profile and interview of former Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN8) on transportation issues. Oberstar might have had a hard fall after his upset defeat in 2010, but his knowledge of transportation issues continues to be remarkable. He paints a picture of the cost of infrastructure maintenance in the future, a task that will surely challenge President Obama or Gov. Romney, depending on who wins next week.

Though I have strong personal political views, I try to avoid letting this blog become too activist in its goals. I like to report and analyze, but also like people to make up their own minds about how to vote. This reflects a change from the early days of this blog, which many of you might recall. For instance, though I know exactly who I'm voting for up and down the ballot, I'm going to avoid formal "endorsements" this fall.

So I know I am trying the patience of some of my socially conservative readers with my stance in opposition to the Marriage Amendment on the ballot next Tuesday. This is one instance where I am making the editorial judgement that I have a role to share an important viewpoint on this issue in an area where the issue is often misunderstood. I welcome alternative views in the comments. Frankly, there is a 50/50 chance the amendment passes. Supporters owe affected citizens born with the predisposition to love people of their own gender a serious explanation why their very identity should be condemned in the state constitution. Why is this necessary?

For the many who have contacted me supporting my stance on this, thanks. If this issue matters to you consider giving some time to the Vote No campaign. Here on the Iron Range, the Minnesotans United for All Families organization will be conducting Vote No phone calls and planning GOTV efforts at their Hibbing office at 409 E. Howard Street (next to Bikes on Howard). The campaign begins Friday night from 6-9 p.m. and continues Saturday through Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Stop in, if you are so inclined.

The campaign stops are coming fast and furious. Vice President Joe Biden will speak in Superior, Wisconsin this Friday. It's a dual-purpose stop, catching the swing region of northwestern Wisconsin, a vital swing state, and reinforcing the Duluth, Minnesota, media market on that side of the bridge. As you may know, Bill Clinton will speak in Minnesota today and a possible Romney-Ryan visit to the region is also possible.

I'll have more on this when details are released. Biden's visit is listed as dependent on weather conditions.

Having attended college and grad school in Superior, I can confirm that Biden and Superior will form a well-constructed literary theme.

Fun Facts about Superior:

• Idiots call it Sup-Town (Soup Town).
• It existed before Duluth, even though it's now overshadowed by its larger Minnesota sister-city.
• It's ethnic composition and layout closely mirror Iron Range towns, full of European immigrants who came to work in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
• Richard Bong was a vaunted WWII test pilot from Superior who died serving his country. That's why the bridge and other sites in town are named "Bong." So stop laughing.
• The trains that passed a couple hundred feet from my family's trailer house on the Iron Range went to Superior to unload ore into the big lakers heading east on Lake Superior.
• Superior is my nomination for capitol of the State (or Republic, if necessary) of Superior, a concept first developed in the early-1800s.

For those who can't attend President Bill Clinton's rallies in Minneapolis and Duluth today, The Uptake is providing a live feed of the Minneapolis rally. I'm happy to share it here. They will be recording the Duluth rally. I'll also check to see if any news organizations are live streaming that event. UPDATE: Northland's NewsCenter will live update their story. Most of the Duluth media will carry the rally live on television, but alas I am not finding any live stream options at this time.

FLASH UPDATE: Here is the embedded video of the Duluth rally.


Here is the feed from this morning's Minneapolis rally featuring the former president.



Though many are trying to psychoanalyze the Obama camp's decision to send Clinton to Minnesota as some sort of sign of serious trouble there, really these events are designed to bolster the ticket -- especially Rick Nolan who is in a genuinely tight race. Further, the hurricane has shut down most of the prime campaign spots on the east coast and is set to shut down Ohio -- so there's time in the schedule to pick up some new states. I wouldn't be suprised to see the Romney campaign here for the same reasons.

Minnesota probably will be closer than the "solid blue" rating it's held for much of the campaign, but it won't be a tipping point state under any circumstances. Any scenario where Minnesota goes red for Romney is one in which Romney wins the national contest handily. Most stats analysts predict a very close national race that, right now, slightly favors Obama. I feel safe in predicting Minnesota as an Obama state next Tuesday.

My mom's name is Sandy. So watching a storm named for my mother slam into the United States' most populous region, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of brethren while potentially altering the outcome of our upcoming election, is upsetting on many levels. Many, many levels.

But that's not your problem, East Coast. You've got real #Sandy issues, namely torrential rains, damage, debris. I join the rest of the nation is praying that no tragedies occur and that damage is as minimal as possible.

But there's no doubt a thing like this is going to knock the power out. That's a given.

I live in the woods. I know there are different versions of "the woods" in describing living arrangements. We have many amenities: electricity, telephone, two satellite dishes on our roof that bring TV and internet into our home. Most of the time we are living a lovely modern existence, nestled in the tranquility of a northern forest and nearby lake. But any serious storm generally sends those trees a knockin' and you can almost count on power outages in high winds.

We had an extended outage of three days this past summer. I wrote a column that might be amusing to some facing long power outages, or maybe not. Maybe it's something you'll laugh about later. Or never? I have no idea.

My point is that power outages quickly render the world you normally inhabit into something far different. The first day is a novelty, but then some harsh realities set in. So, some advice for anyone going without water now or in the near future.

1. First of all, don't be a hero. If the authorities have asked you to evacuate, do that. We've never been evacuated here, but if someone tells me they can't get fire, ambulance or police service to me if I need it, I take that as a cue to board up and get out.
   
2. Water. I don't just mean the bottled stuff so you can hydrate and sustain life functions, though that's pretty good, too. Get some buckets of nasty stuff you can use to flush your toilets. Maybe you live in a town with pumped water and sewers and don't need electricity to flush -- normally. But if your city is banged up enough you'll lose water too and I can't tell you how much you'll want to flush the toilet. If you have kids, especially young kids with pooping issues who randomly produce feces the size of an adult forearm, you're going to want some buckets of water for flushing. I understand there will be a fair amount of water available, now or soon.
3. Learn early the folly of your phone dependence. Though I am a deeply addled internet addict, I have striven to maintain some distance from my cell phone. I get a very limited data plan, no texting and I rarely answer the thing. It's nice to make a call when you need to, or catch up on phone calls when you're riding somewhere. But if you are an app hound who uses the phone to find products, directions or general information -- you're in for a long week, son. Don't count on it, because you might be able to use it if your power goes out, but if the tower goes out (possible in a big storm) you've got Angry Birds, a calculator and e-mail you've already read.
4. Paper plates. Plastic cups. Sporks. If you can, do your dishes before the storm hits. Run picnic conditions thereafter. Get the garbage out of the house. I stress again, mind the smell. It is the smell that gets you, probably around Day 2.
5. Go back in time. You'd like to have a generator. You'd like a hand crank radio. You'd like to have a good supply of light sources, such as flashlights and lanterns. You'd like to have enough propane or charcoal to cook outdoors. You'd like all of these things, but as I write this it's too late and you won't get any of them. Find someone who does.
6. Use this time for your family and to meet your neighbors. Your fellow humans are often terrible sources of stress. Often it's their fault, not yours. You are also probably a terrible person as well, at least sometimes and certainly in the eyes of some. But an experience like this is a one-time opportunity to bond with something bigger than yourself. Community formed now will endure past when the lights come back on.

UPDATE: Live footage of President Clinton in Duluth here.

Former President Bill Clinton will rally voters in Duluth and Minneapolis Tuesday in support of President Obama, Senator Amy Klobuchar and, among others, former Rep. Rick Nolan, the DFL candidate in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District. At this time it appears that the rallies will take place on university campuses, most likely UM-Duluth and the main U in Minneapolis. I'll report details when they're available.

UPDATE: The Obama campaign has issued sign-up information for the Duluth and Minneapolis rallies.

UPDATE II: Details for Duluth rally are as follows. Doors open at 12:30 p.m. at the Kirby Ballroom at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

UPDATE III: Details for the Minneapolis rally are as follows. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. at the McNamara Alumni Center on the University of Minnesota campus.

A while back I lamented that we hadn't seen the traditional October rally at the Hibbing Memorial Building. Clinton is the most logical surrogate for this area, but with him appearing in Duluth it appears that the Range won't get its rally. I'm not terribly surprised by this. While recent polls show Minnesota tightening in the presidential race, it's still not classified a swing state. With population losses on the Range, Duluth is the bigger bastion of DFL votes for GOTV purposes.

Clinton, star of the Democratic Convention in Charlotte this summer, will probably have a small but noticeable positive effect on the electoral fortunes of President Obama and Nolan in northern Minnesota. I'd argue Clinton is still the most popular living political figure here. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, carried the Range handily in 2008 despite a large statewide win for Obama.

MPR's Tom Scheck reports that Republicans are considering an appearance by Mitt Romney and/or Paul Ryan in the waning days of the campaign.

Last night, PPP released a new poll showing a 48-44 percent lead for former U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL) in his bid to oust freshman Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8).

While this lead remains narrow in terms of the margin of error, this is the third poll showing a Nolan lead in the past two weeks. For polling nerds, the three pollsters include one with a slight GOP lean (the well-regarded SurveyUSA, which showed Nolan +1), the Star Tribune (using a relatively unproven pollster, which showed Nolan +7) and now PPP, which is regarded as an accurate pollster but with a slight Democratic house effect (Nolan +4). Thus it might finally be possible to say that right now, Nolan holds a slight but measurable lead going into the final week of the campaign.

This entire time I've been waiting for a poll that shows Cravaack up 5. That's what it felt like on the ground, anecdotally. Cravaack has run a sharp campaign and he swept the large newspaper endorsements. He's vastly better funded than Nolan, and he has far more outside spending on his behalf than his opponent. But this third poll has now brought me to a new conclusion.

Cravaack might be a skilled, TV-friendly and generally likable candidate, and if he wins that's why. But he's running in an historically Democratic district that is not entirely comfortable with key aspects of Cravaack's actual political beliefs. This district wanted change in 2010, but it's not necessarily as conservative as the guy that change ushered in.

Though I would like to know more about its funding sources (Tom Selinski put the group together), I was interested to see this small, local political group, "Regular Folks from the Iron Range" form to run this one ad.

The ad is interesting on many levels. It's old school. It's all dudes. Almost all Steelworkers. I know a few of those guys. This is exactly how Iron Rangers talk. I don't think there's a ton of money behind this thing and Nolan supporters seem to be the ones circulating it the most. But if it is effective to some degree on the Range, it would diminish the notable gains Cravaack has made in the region.

This race is not over. Nolan needs a strong close to put this away, because the final push from Cravaack and allies will be strong -- especially if they believe themselves to be in a dogfight. But Nolan has to be pleased that he's got a 50/50 shot at this after a rough summer primary and a stutter-start to his general election campaign.

UPDATE: This morning, Chip Cravaack's campaign released an internal poll showing him ahead 50-40 percent, a 10-point lead. Though it's well within the realm of possibility for Cravaack to be ahead in a poll, 10 points seems implausible compared with the results from the three independent pollsters. Read the memo at the above link or below the jump.

Mark your calendars. In late November/early December 2013 a "super comet" might pass by Earth, provided it isn't destroyed by the sun. Scientists term Comet ISON (officially "C/2012 S1") a "sun-grazer" because it will clip the edge of the sun. Being so near the sun, much of its frozen matter will erupt in jets of gas and dust.

No big deal. It only stands a chance of being "fifteen times brighter than the moon."

(h/t TYWKIWDBI)

This is my Sunday column for the Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired last week on KAXE's "Between You and Me." You may access the audio version here.

Love, like iron, stands up to pressure and time
By Aaron J. Brown

The story of the Iron Range is a story of geology. Pressure and time bring change. The iron ore rose near the earth’s surface. Lakes formed. People poured over the land, changed the land and were changed by the land. Sometimes though, even in geology, brief important events occur. That’s when it’s up to us.

I’ve spent my whole life on the Iron Range. I don't remember when I understood the real meaning of the word "gay," but I do know that I heard the word hundreds of times before I understood it. On the Range "gay" was always bad. It was always an insult.

Still, I heard faint whispers echoes of family and friends who might be, just possibly could be gay for real. We did not know or dare to ask. We do not discuss such personal things, even if these loved ones held our families and lives together in hard times.

In 1998, when I was 18, I found myself sitting at a table talking politics with strangers. We were marking ballots and one of the topics was gay marriage.

By then I knew what “gay” really meant, and I had even read about the idea of gay people in committed relationships having legal rights. I was, however, very uncomfortable with all this. I had read somewhere that marriage was a social institution to bring children into this world, and that seemed consistent with what I saw in my large family. So I marked my ballot against gay marriage.

Across the table sat a woman with dark, short hair, small round glasses and a voice somehow gruff and kind at the same time.

“I don’t like your vote on that one.”

I was actually baffled why anyone would have that opinion. “How come?” I asked.

She told me that she was in a committed relationship with her partner, that they loved each other and had been married in a ceremony, even if the state wouldn’t recognize that marriage.

“Why can’t our love be treated the same as anyone else’s?”

I muttered something about family and children. She nodded and said she respected my opinion, but that she and her spouse didn’t want anything special, just fairness.

That woman was Lorrie Janatopoulos and she would become a friend over the years to come. She was then and remains a person who knows the region’s past struggles and seeks to help new generations overcome them in her work. This summer she ran for state representative in the heart of the Iron Range, Tom Rukavina’s old district, and battled to a close second place in the primary. She celebrated yet another anniversary with her wife Sharon, who is also a well established professional in the area. And I can't think of any good reason at all to tell them they shouldn’t have the same rights as my wife and I.

I understand the desire by many to practice the values of their religion. If a religion considers certain behaviors to be moral or immoral, then members of that religion are rightly granted wide rights to practice those values. These freedoms are limited only when one person's freedoms infringe on the rights of another.

The current effort to amend the constitution to limit marriage is just such a case.

Why must we put something in the constitution that would denigrate, insult and cause actual harm to lawful citizens who love each other? I often hear arguments related to fear, intolerance and a desire to apply one’s own deeply held and sacred religious beliefs to others. Often pro-amendment arguments are based on a heartfelt desire to stabilize families. These arguments are, however, misguided.

The problems facing our families are much deeper than the demographic profile of the one special person we love. That love is found in homes displaying both "Vote Yes" and "Vote No" signs. No, the problem is not the kind of love; the problem is the quantity. Families need more love, not less.

Much has changed in the geological blink of the past 100 years on the Iron Range. We've made progress in a place where once Finns were blacklisted, Catholics were discriminated against, and women could not work without harassment.

This is our geological moment. Let us release the pressure of pain and injustice weighing down a small number of our family, friends and neighbors so that we may grow more love, instead of less.

The vote is simple. Though my wife and I are voting No on the marriage amendment, I certainly respect your opinion. You should vote the way you believe is right. I can only ask what a friend once asked me. What if your love, your rights and your family were on the ballot and everyone else got to vote on whether or not they were real?

Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from the Iron Range. He writes MinnesotaBrown and hosts 91.7 KAXE's Great Northern Radio Show on public stations. The rebroadcast of the Eveleth show will air today at 11 a.m.

Last Saturday we broadcast a new episode of the Great Northern Radio Show from the Boardman Auditorium at Eveleth-Gilbert High School in Eveleth, Minnesota. It was two hours of laughs, tears and some of the best music we've ever featured. I'm proud of all our shows, but I'm particularly proud of how the program continues to grow every time we go to air.

If you missed the show you can hear the rebroadcast this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 91.7 KAXE-Grand Rapids/90.5 KBXE-Bemidji/89.9 Brainerd/live streaming on kaxe.org. After that, the show will be available in podcast form at our website.

Our next show will be Saturday, Dec. 15, live from the Edge Center for the Performing Arts in Bigfork, Minnesota. We're current amassing talent for that show, which will celebrate life in the winter woods just in time for the holidays.

If you haven't yet, please show your support for our parent station, KAXE-Northern Community Radio, by becoming a member. Their fall fund drive is going on now. They produce quality radio programs and play a wide range of musical genres you won't hear anywhere else. It's just bar none the best radio station in northern Minnesota.

Our director Shelly Nowak took some nice photos from the stage during rehearsal and the show:

Matt Ray and Those Damn Horses

Last year, Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) moved his family to New Hampshire so that his wife could be closer to her job in Boston. This was highly unusual for a freshmen member of Congress in a closely-contested district. The move made life easier for Cravaack's family, which is admirable, but a political nightmare at the time for Cravaack. It seemed it would be a huge talking point for DFLers in their bid to win back the seat.

While "the New Hampshire" story was a frequent topic in the DFL primary, the issue quieted after Rick Nolan won the DFL nomination and embarked upon a high stakes challenge to the vulnerable incumbent.

That all changed this week when Nolan and the DFL began running ads that stated, in essence, "Chip Cravaack doesn't live here." The phrasing immediately raised the hackles of Cravaack and the GOP. Cravaack complained and actually got a Duluth TV station to pull the DFL ad, though Nolan's is still on the air.


Cravaack's campaign is quick to point out his scheduling records, which show him in the district some 160-plus days this past year -- a healthy amount compared to other members of Congress and more than former Rep. Jim Oberstar spent when he was in office. And this checks out -- Cravaack does fly back to Minnesota often for political and legislative events. He has a home in North Branch where he legally resides.


The issue with Cravaack's family being in New Hampshire is not a legal residency issue. The issue is that being in Congress automatically demands that you be out of the district doing your job in Washington, D.C. It demands that you raise ungodly amounts of money for your political survival, which takes a great deal of time.

What Rick Nolan should have said was that Rep. Cravaack might have strong opinions about national issues, but his roots in the district are light. He could represent a district in New Hampshire and do largely the same things he does here. He performs well by rote, doing interviews, holding meetings and giving speeches. But the argument Nolan should have made is that win or lose, Nolan is personally committed to this specific area. In his gut.

Unfortunately Democrats have raised this issue far too late and in such a way that allows Cravaack to generate sympathy. The lingering "wha?" factor over Cravaack's New Hampshire connection remains from a year ago and it might well hurt him on Nov. 6. But with less than two weeks to go it's likely that this issue will be lost in the cacophony of political back-and-forth that most people are beginning to tune out.

Today we commemorate the lives of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, Marcia Wellstone Markuson, Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy, and Will McLaughlin. We lost them ten years ago today in plane crash on the Iron Range, an event that changed the course of Minnesota politics.

In the hyper-partisan world in which we now live, it's hard to properly explain Wellstone's legacy. He was a conscience liberal, a true believer. All I can say is that I was a poor kid from an apolitical family on the Iron Range. Wellstone changed that by sheer force of personality and sincerity. I was honored to meet him and converse several times. The first time I was a teenager who wanted to be a journalist. He encouraged me. The last time I was editor of a newspaper. I don't know whether he would have won that last election, but I do miss him. We could have used his voice in the mix these last few years. The people we lost that day were good people.

There will be a remembrance at the Wellstone Memorial Site along Bodas Road south of Eveleth at 1 p.m. Because of limited parking at the site, a shuttle bus will run from the Park and Ride at the intersection of Highways 53 and 37.

After a brief ceremony, a gathering will be held at 2 p.m. at the Clinton Township Hall. There will be live music, including Bill Maxwell and the Roe Family Singers, who -- coincidentally -- will be headlining the Dec. 15 Great Northern Radio Show in Bigfork. Several prominent figures, among them U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, will speak.

Further events will be held at the Duluth Labor Temple tonight at 7, including a poetry reading by Barton Sutter.

KAXE's series of non-traditional radio forums in the hotly contested MN Senate District 5 continue Thursday morning at 8:15 with a District 5B conversation between Reps. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) and Carolyn McElfatrick (R-Deer River). The segment begins at 8:15 a.m. on 91.7 KAXE/Northern Community Radio, streaming at kaxe.org.

This is the district featuring three incumbent vs. incumbent races after a dramatic round of redistricting in the area. It represents the western edge of the Iron Range and a large portion of Minnesota's "woods and waters" region.

Last week Sens. Tom Saxhaug (DFL-Grand Rapids) and John Carlson (R-Bemidji) had a congenial SD5 conversation, one that primarily involved the two men trying to explain their understanding of this dramatically reconfigured district. You can still access this debate by searching the archives for the Oct. 18, 8 a.m., hour. Next Thursday, Reps. John Persell (DFL-Bemdiji) and Larry Howes (R-Walker) will hold the District 5A conversation.

About a month ago, Lakeland Public Television held a series of debates involving many north central legislative districts. I've posted the video of the SD5-area debates below.

Senate District 5: Saxhaug vs. Carlson


House District 5A: Persell vs. Howes


House District 5B: Anzelc vs. McElfatrick


The radio forums use a much different format and are also a useful tool in understanding these candidates.


DISCLAIMER: I am a friend and campaign advisor to Rep. Tom Anzelc.

This week the Duluth News Tribune endorsed a "no" vote on both of Minnesota's upcoming proposed constitutional amendments -- one forbidding gay marriage and another requiring a photographic ID to vote. And while this also happens to be my view, the DNT's argument raises an important point in these debates. Legislating by biennial ballot initiatives is a Pandora's box of wasted time and political cowardice.

Voting procedures, in particular, reflect public policy best handled by the legislature. All other aspects of how voting works are governed by the three traditional branches of government.

If these amendments pass, a future DFL legislature will surely seek to repeal them in a similar fashion. And will they stop there? What laundry list of political issues might seem a tempting constitutional pursuit to a future political bloc unwilling to work with some future governor? The list is endless. This is no way to handle day-to-day governance.

Constitutional amendments traditionally extend rights. Any amendments that seek to restrict rights have, without exception, turned out badly -- or at least into long term political brinksmanship that failed to improve the lives of the governed.

That's not the only reason to oppose these amendments. And I further understand there are arguments in favor of the amendments that might well deserve hearing in the proper legislative channels. But we live in a constitutional republic. When we throw up our hands and decide that the legislature cannot do anything, citizens lose in the long run. Always.

The Duluth News Tribune reported Tuesday that unemployment in Duluth has dipped below 6 percent. Moreover, unemployment in the entire region has also dropped:

The jobless rate reached 6.2 percent for Northeastern Minnesota, down from 6.7 percent in August. And the greater Twin Ports area, which includes all of St. Louis, Carlton and Douglas counties, dipped to 6.1 percent, also down from 6.7 percent in August.

 
This seems to bear out the larger narrative that Duluth, in particular, is finding new ways to thrive after decades of booms and busts tied to northern Minnesota's natural resource-based economy. These rates are far below the national unemployment average.

I'd also argue that if you were to plug a 6 percent unemployment rate into the election prediction formula touted by Nate Silver over at the NY Times' "FiveThirtyEight" blog, you'd find a local environment supportive of President Obama and incumbents down the line. I think that will certainly be the case in Duluth.

Question is, will independent voters who decide that Obama is alright go down the ballot and vote out their Congressman, Republican Rep. Chip Cravaack, or stick with him, too? And will Range voters, who attribute the good economy to the mines, behave predictably? I doubt that. Thing is, there are so many fewer voters on the Range than 20 years ago, any slight shift in voting patterns would probably go unnoticed in the big picture. A major shift, however, would be noticeable.

For a long time there the Twin Cities was getting far more TV advertising in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional race than the traditional Duluth-area base of this northern district. That's all done. Duluth TV is now marinated in MN-8 advertising from the campaigns of both Rep. Chip Cravaack, former Rep. Rick Nolan and their outside allies (though Cravaack's allies have much more money and ads).

While both sides have ads that would qualify as effective and others that qualify as noise, the whole thing sounds like a din in which it's hard for any ad to break out.

So lets look at some other information.

First, a Star Tribune poll now shows Nolan with a 50-43 lead. That's seven points, a much bigger lead than any candidate has shown in this race. The Cravaack team has dismissed the poll, and the Strib poll has had mixed results in the past. Nevertheless, since other polls have shown at least modest leads for Nolan one could consider this further evidence that Nolan is running just slightly ahead at this point.

Second, the Mesabi Daily News endorsed Cravaack this weekend. This was widely expected -- the MDN is a rabidly pro-mining paper and has been friendly to Cravaack throughout his first term. Still, it's in print and certainly helps Cravaack. Though the Iron Range often bucks the endorsement of its center-right newspaper, circumstantial evidence would suggest that Cravaack has made permanent gains of some kind on the eastern Mesabi in particular.

UPDATE: The Duluth News Tribune added their endorsement this morning, also for Rep. Cravaack. The DNT endorsed Cravaack in 2010 and has stuck with their reasoning.

Finally, the last debate is scheduled on the Iron Range -- a Halloween affair that was originally scheduled for 90 minutes. Team Cravaack has apparently been trying to negotiate this down to 60 minutes, to the press release delight of Team Nolan. This is very interesting to me, because candidates that are ahead usually want fewer, shorter debates while candidates that are behind preach the opposite.

I think both campaigns sense that Nolan isn't really a full seven points ahead and the whole thing is very, very close. Nolan knows that he needs to make up ground on the Range, while Cravaack believes that if he breaks it open here he has his best chance to craft the long term coalition he'd need to stay in office for a career.

But consider that Nolan's family goes way, way back in the Brainerd area -- a place where Cravaack made huge gains two years ago. And consider that Duluth is behaving much differently than the Iron Range. Cravaack has not made any gains in the district's largest and most Democratic city and that may be, in the end, his undoing ... if his Range strategy falls short.

The ads are running. They're on now. It goes on and on, but we are just 15 days away from knowing what happens.

This is my Sunday column for the Oct. 21, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I'm also sharing some "online exclusive" pictures from my trip to Atlanta earlier this month.

Separating the sacred from the sugar water
By Aaron J. Brown

We recently traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for a blogging conference my wife attended. I was there for two reasons: 1) to assure Christina on her first airplane trip that the plane would not crash (even though, heck, who knows? It *could*); and 2) to gather as much history and culture as I could, so long as it was close to public transportation and reasonably priced.

Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola. A small town pharmacist cooked up the original formula back in the 1800s and sold it to a marketer who loved it after just one taste. It got to be kind of a big deal in the years that followed.

Visitors to the World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta are greeted with big screen TVs, each showing flowing, bubbling, splashing Coca-Cola cascading in and around a shiny lobby bigger than the concentrator plant at HibTac. After an hour of learning about Coke’s history, Coke’s impact and Coke’s secret recipe, they drop you in a tasting room where they flood you with the flavors of popular pop from around the world. Some of the flavors are delightful. Some are mildly sweetened versions of the water you left soaking in a greasy dinner pan because it wouldn’t come clean.

When they finally have you burping rainbows, you find yourself in a room with a giant spigot of Coca-Cola. You get to drink and drink and drink more and more and more Coke. And let me tell you something, after all that you feel normal again. Like the world is going to be OK. This is precisely the psychological effect they’re going for and it’s brilliant. You know, in a diabetes sort of way.

It took some time for the fizz to wear off. I had it in my head that this trip would be a lovely distraction.

The next morning I took the train down to Five Points and got on a bus for the Sweet Auburn neighborhood. A short walk past a vacant lot over cracked sidewalk stood an unassuming brick structure, the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. This was the building where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was baptized, first preached and served for a number of years as co-pastor under his father. It was also the site of his funeral after he was assassinated in 1968.

Martin Luther King, Jr., felt called to the ministry, to follow in his father’s footsteps which were practically worn into the red carpet of the sanctuary. Only five pastors have ever served Ebenezer since its founding in 1886, the longest serving among them were King’s grandfather and father. King was a competitive student, compelled to do well. And as young pastors-in-training go, he was widely recognized as a hot prospect. But he did not anticipate how his gift could help, how his words could bring peace and justice to a situation on Earth. He would never become senior pastor of Ebenezer, but he would help usher about justice for people facing injustice all over the world.

Walking past his childhood home, seeing his family’s church beautifully restored to its glory, yet fundamentally modest, you realize that Dr. King was not a mythical being. He was merely a man called to service of particular importance in his time. His words carried political and social meaning, but they were then and remain now of even greater spiritual significance.

Some things matter and some things don’t. Some people understand this and some people don’t. Sometimes you can do something, and when you can you should. At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta I was overwhelmed with the reality that this power exists in all of us. And with this power comes great hope that simply cannot be bottled, labeled and sold. It must come from our actions.

Sure, I’d like to buy the world a Coke, but visiting the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta was free. Our purpose might come from a church or it might come from somewhere else. “There is no religion higher than truth and righteousness,” reads the Ghandi quote at the King Center across the street. Telling the truth and opening our hearts to what purpose might find us, why, that might just go a bit farther than sugar water.

Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from the Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and hosts 91.7 KAXE’s Great Northern Radio Show on public stations.

Tune to the Great Northern Radio Show tonight at 5 p.m. on 91.7 KAXE Grand Rapids (89.9 Brainerd) and 90.5 KBXE Bemidji. It's streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org.

If you can, please attend the live broadcast by arriving at the Boardman Auditorium at Eveleth-Gilbert High School by 4:30 p.m. Admission is free and the live performance is always fun.


Our theme is "Home on the Range," a homecoming for our show and a celebration of the uniqueness of the Mesabi Iron Range. If you like the stuff I write about the Range, this is my musical and comedy version of that.

Listen to past shows and find out more at the Great Northern Radio Show program page at KAXE.org.

From a post in the Atlantic:



1956 is not terribly long ago. People born then and after are still working. Their parents are often still alive. Their grandparents, if alive, would be in their 90s. But the above clip from a 1956 TV show includes a 96-year-old man who saw John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C. in 1865.

Because so many generations have passed since Lincoln, we assign that time to a fixed place in history books. But we are barely two lifetimes past that time. Stories shared between the generations are so important.

When Lincoln was president there was but a dim notion that anything more than great timbers lie north of St. Paul or west of Lake Superior. Traders knew the Indians valued it for its land, game and lakes, but in this northern Minnesota was not much different than much of the West. In 20 years, Charlemagne Tower would open the Vermilion Range and the Merritt family -- a father and large collection of strapping brothers -- discovered more even richer ore on the Mesabi.

I'll have the great-granddaughter of the matriarch of the Merritt family on this Saturday's Great Northern Radio Show. Lauren Nickisch is a teacher, writer and actress, but carries with her the old, but not-as-old-as-you'd-think story of the Iron Range we know today.

The show features some great Minnesota musicians, including two headliners: Matt Ray and Those Damn Horses and the Sam Miltich Trio. Our friend Iris Kolodji is back with some really great Range-themed songs. Casey Aro and Paul Paulisich each bring unique sound steeped in Range music tradition. St. Paul musician and Range native Paul Seeba is a late edition, coming on to sing an original song that ties to one of our sketches. Our house piano player and composer Nickolai Koivunen will once again display his versatility and creativity.

Our actors include Louisa Guggisberg, Kat Gritzmacher, C.J. Anderson, Bill Lah and our sound man Scott Hanson. KAXE's Steve Downing will perform a piece inspired by his Taconite roots. Students from the Eveleth-Gilbert Drama program will also appear.

The big difference for me in this show is that I'll be doing longer monologue segments, more like my "Between You and Me" segments but woven together in what I approximate to be a creative thematic choice.

We're trying some edgier material this time, but our goals is the same. The Great Northern Radio Show seeks to be an entertaining bridge between the generations, spanning people to place and place to the ages. With jokes.

Tune in Saturday night, 5-7 p.m., on 91.7 KAXE in northern Minnesota (89.9 Brainerd) and 90.5 KBXE Bemidji. Please, do yourself a favor and join us in person at the Boardman Auditorium at E-G High School in Eveleth. Free admission; all we ask is that you arrive by 4:30 to be seated before the broadcast begins.

All told, I don't think you'll find a more interesting combination of legislative races than in the new District 5 in northern Minnesota.

Two incumbent senators were paired together by redistricting and four incumbent representatives were paired in the respective House districts. All three races sport local issues, unique candidates and a tight, "could-go-either-way" partisan index. Control and composition of the Minnesota legislature will be disproportionately affected by the vote here.

KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio, an independent public media organization spanning most of the northern third of the state, will host legislative forums for these districts starting this Thursday morning.

Candidates in three all-incumbent legislative races meet on community radio

Community radio stations 91.7 KAXE (Grand Rapids) and 90.5 KBXE (Bagley-Bemidji) will welcome the candidates in three unique and closely-watched Legislative contests. The District 5 candidates for Senate and House will meet in three forums on the next three consecutive Thursday mornings, moderated by Morning Show host Scott Hall.

“This election year, state legislative districts in northern Minnesota have some dramatically different new boundaries, and no district was more thoroughly reorganized than Senate District 5,” Hall said.

“This new district, running from Bemidji to the western Iron Range to Pine River, is unique in that all six candidates for three seats are incumbents are challenging each other: six incumbents in all, and only three will return to St. Paul.”

The Senate candidates will be first, with Republican John Carlson of Bemidji and DFLer Tom Saxhaug of Grand Rapids talking Thurs., Oct. 18.

House district 5B candidates, DFLer Tom Anzelc of Balsam Township and Republican Carolyn McElfatrick of Deer River meet Thurs., Oct. 25;

and House District 5A candidates, Republican Larry Howes of Walker, and DFLer John Persell of Bemidji, talk on Thurs., Nov. 1. All three forums will air from 8:15 to 9 a.m.

Listeners are welcome to send questions for the candidates prior to the broadcasts to comments@kaxe.org.

KAXE and KBXE are operated by Northern Community Radio, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build community in northern Minnesota through radio programming, cultural events and interactive media.

I'm told these forums will be free-flowing discussions, rather than timed debates. Candidates will join host Scott Hall in the intimate studios of KAXE on the Mississippi River in Grand Rapids and simply hash out a series of top issues.

You can listen to KAXE at www.kaxe.org, on 91.7 FM in the Iron Range/Grand Rapids region, 90.5 KBXE Bemidji and Bagley, and 89.9 FM in Brainerd.


* I am a member, content contributor and associate producer for KAXE/KBXE, which produces and distributes my Great Northern Radio Show program.
** Again, I must note that I manage the campaign of my friend State Rep. Tom Anzelc, one of the candidates involved. I will not be participating in the planning or conduct of these forums.

More signs of economic growth on the western Mesabi: The Itasca Economic Development Corporation has found a buyer for its Itasca Eco Industrial Park in Grand Rapids. This was the former Ainsworth lumber plant that closed in 2008. J.M. Longyear, LLC, just bought the whole thing.

GRAND RAPIDS, MN – On behalf of our board of directors and our many stakeholders from throughout the region, Itasca Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) is pleased to announce the successful execution of a purchase agreement with J.M. Longyear, L.L.C., regarding the sale of 121.5 acres of land and all existing buildings at the Itasca Eco Industrial Park in Grand Rapids.

“We are thrilled with this most recent outcome of our negotiations with J.M. Longyear, as the Company works to invest in Itasca County and create much needed jobs in our region,” stated Mark Zimmerman, IEDC President and CEO. “While our thanks go out to the staff and management at Longyear for helping to produce an agreement which satisfies the needs of both parties, we extend our deepest gratitude to the community and business leaders of Itasca County for their ongoing support as we work to redevelop this vital community asset.”

Based in Marquette, Michigan, J.M. Longyear operates a number of upstream and downstream natural resource- based businesses in Michigan, Minnesota and Canada, including owning and managing over 165,000 acres of timberlands, mineral rights on over 160,000 acres, and downstream forest product and mineral processing businesses.

“We look forward to working with IEDC, APEX and our many economic development partners from throughout the state, as we strive to develop this ideal property into a sustainable industrial project to create value-added opportunities,” stated Steve Hicks, President & CEO of J.M. Longyear. “We are grateful to the IEDC team for its outstanding efforts in guiding and supporting the process to ensure a mutually beneficial transaction.”

The purchase agreement executed this month serves to formalize J.M. Longyear’s commitment to taking ownership of the anchor property at the Itasca Eco Industrial Park by the end of 2014.

John M. Longyear

Now, this is not just some random company, but the modern continuation of the private holdings of one John Munro Longyear, a pioneer of the early Michigan and Minnesota iron ranges. There are several places on the Iron Range named for the Longyear family, among them the iconic Longyear Lake in Chisholm, named for Longyear's cousin E.J., who was in J.M.'s employ.

Longyear died in 1922, but not before he staked out the major ore reserves of Minnesota and Michigan. We're talking land, timber rights and mineral rights. Old school.

Longyear, LLC, owns the rights to the land to be mined by Essar Steel in Nashwauk, so this move will surely support that effort. But having a company like this locate a large facility in the area suggest that Longyear might look to get involved in additional concerns.

Last year, Magnetation located its headquarters in Grand Rapids. This would be a second major mining interest to locate there. The locus of the Mesabi Range is shifting westward.

Now, there are many old arguments about whether or not Grand Rapids is really part of the cultural Iron Range. People in Grand Rapids often do not consider themselves such, and vice versa. But when you have two mining HQs and mine activity on the edge of your town, you are part of the Iron Range. Both the east Range and Grand Rapids purists are going to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new reality.

UPDATE: There's more to this.

First of all, a reader pointed out that I neglected to mention Coleraine's Longyear Park. That would have been a more appropriate example because Longyear, along with the mining expertise and forward-thinking of John C. Greenway, opened the whole of mining on the western Mesabi Iron Range -- from Grand Rapids to Kelly Lake. So the city's beautiful park is called Longyear and the school is called Greenway.

The Longyear heirs control 60 percent of the land Essar wants to mine. The rest is controlled by, among others, the Bennett family (Bennett Park in Hibbing, for those counting parks), the Pillsburys (George Pillsbury, scion of this storied Minnesota line, just passed away this week), the Great Northern Trust (which turns over to investors next year) and others.

So, if you really want to DaVinci Code this deal you can see a lot of moving plot element. I don't know exactly what will come of it, but one can see that the Longyears buying an entire industrial park would portend a solid future for natural resource development on the western Iron Range.

U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN-8) and former Rep. Rick Nolan, his DFL challenger, face off for their third debate today at noon in Cambridge, Minnesota. The pair debated in Duluth a week ago and participated in a KSTP "At Issue" debate which aired this past weekend. This one will be aired live on Minnesota Public Radio. You can watch the live feed here, courtesy of The Uptake.

Polls show the candidates essentially tied heading into the campaign's final three weeks. The television airwaves are caked with ads.



The code has been switched so now you can watch the archived debate on demand.

Earlier today I posted an update on the race.

The third MN-8 debate is on for noon today, but here's another view of the race that's been collecting in the oak barrel I keep outside my back door. There's more in there, of course. Always more.

Fundraising:

Surprisingly, Rick Nolan out-raised Chip Cravaack in the final quarter before the election. Cravaack enters these final weeks with much more cash on hand, but the turnaround by Nolan shows that the campaign did have some fundraising game in the end.

As this MPR story by Catharine Richert shows, however, the campaign spending in this race is paltry compared with the party and outside group spending. Cravaack-aligned groups are crushing Nolan-aligned groups on this front. This is an example of what Citizens United has wrought. Fundamentally, those most emboldened by large, anonymous political spending are groups funded by conservative, wealthy individuals. This is good news if that's your side, bad news if it isn't.

In practice, however, when you watch local TV in Duluth the result is a series of consecutive ads that show Nolan telling people Cravaack will kill Medicare, Cravaack telling people Nolan will kill Medicare with Obamacare and then two guys from WI-7 across the bridge saying the same things. My own perspective is that all this has a numbing effect.

Attacks:
Cravaack has stepped up his attacks on Nolan, moving into the details of Nolan's resume. Specifically, Cravaack has spent a lot of time and ink lately attacking Nolan's tenure as President of Gov. Rudy Perpich's World Trade Center during the 1980s, along with his other business dealings. This is, incidentally, the same line of attack that Tarryl Clark tried during the primary. She said then that her attacks were light compared to what the Republicans would do, and, you know what? They seem about the same. They seem like the kind of thing you put out when you're down 1-5 points heading into an election. But Cravaack has much more money and is being very aggressive during debates on this issue.

Nolan has spent a lot of time trying to convince people that Cravaack and aligned-groups' attacks on him over "killing Medicare" are bogus. Of course, those particular charges are widely regarded as bogus by reputable fact-checking sites, but the old adage is "if you're explain,' you ain't gainin'." Nolan had hoped that Cravaack's vote for the Paul Ryan budget, which is in actually a major re-envisioning of Medicare that would reduce benefits over time, would be his major point of attack, but as I said before, both sides are saying the same thing which makes that a harder punch to land.

Iron Range:
I've written broadly about how Cravaack is trying to soften the DFL's hold on the Iron Range with his policies in favor of mining in this election. Nolan later won the Steelworker's endorsement, which helped him build a decent firewall here, but you can tell DFLers are really taking this seriously when you see Iron Range firebrand Rep. Tom Rukavina do a video like this:



Normally a web video is no big deal, but I have learned that a substantial radio ad buy featuring a similar Rukavina speech will air across northern Minnesota.

We're also waiting to see if a major Iron Range national campaign event will be held this year. In 2004, then VP-nominee John Edwards gave a big rally for the national ticket at the Hibbing Memorial Building. In 2008, it was Hillary Clinton. Because Minnesota has, amazingly, been left off the radar screens of both the Obama and Romney campaigns, we are left wondering if the campaigns will even send surrogates to Duluth, much less the Range.

In the past three presidential cycles, both Republicans and Democrats have sent their presidential, vice-presidential or "super special surrogate" into the Duluth market during October. So far, it's been whisper quiet on that front.

A major ticket visit would probably create some helpful enthusiasm for either Cravaack or Nolan, something I'm sure the campaigns are seeking. I would be mildly disappointed if we didn't have the classic Iron Range DFL rally at the Memorial Building. There is such history there. Nolan, too, would surely appreciate the boost that might bring him.

The polls:
As we said last week, the polls show a tie, perhaps a slight lead for Nolan. Today's debate and the one scheduled for Oct. 31 in Virginia, MN on the Iron Range are important. Just as important, however, might be the presidential debate tonight. National winds will have a big impact on this race. If President Obama wins Minnesota handily and the election generally, he might provide Nolan the boost he needs. If the race slips away from him Cravaack will reap the benefits.

I've been underground for a couple days, on the mend from a bad cold and ear infection. I'm not all the way back yet but aim to be ready for the busy week ahead.

Later this morning I'll post the live feed for the third debate between Chip Cravaack and Rick Nolan in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District. I'll also have some thoughts about happenings in that race, which seems to have reached its sweaty, bruised nadir.

Minnesota Public Radio is producing a new podcast for state political news called Policast. I was honored to be a guest on the first one last week. I talked about Range politics with Cathy Wurzer. If you'd like to hear that episode, check it out here.


I see that some fellow jumped out of a balloon from the stratosphere. That's always good for some perspective. Felix Baumgartner is the first person to break the sound barrier without the aid of a machine. I'm just going to call that the headline of the year. Really, the rest is getting a little old.


Of additional, albeit lesser note, this week I prepare for the Great Northern Radio Show, which returns to the airwaves of KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio this Saturday in Eveleth. The reason I'm focusing on rest right now is that it currently hurts to talk or make facial expressions, which -- for the record -- are two of the three things I do for money in this world (I also poke letters on a keyboard). This kind of ailment has hit me before major events in the past and, to date, I've always managed a strong recovery. In some ways it helps to have the distraction before the show because I emerge grateful for the gift of speech and the opportunity to do what I do.

This show will be a musical treat and we continue our experimentation with hyper-local comedy for a wide audience.

The show will air from 5-7 p.m. on 91.7 KAXE in most of northeastern Minnesota, 90.5 KBXE in Bemidji and north central Minnesota and 89.9 Brainerd. You may listen online at www.kaxe.org.

Please join us for the live performance at the Boardman Auditorium at Eveleth-Gilbert Senior High School by 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, but we do ask that you arrive by then. To guarantee a seat call KAXE at 218-326-1234. We expect there to be room for everyone who wants to attend, so just show up if you aren't sure.

Finally, KAXE will be starting its fall membership drive. Please consider joining or renewing your membership during our show. This wonderful station is unlike anything you'll hear anywhere else in the world. The Great Northern Radio Show is only possible because of their unique and creative mission. Your support of KAXE keeps us on the air.

This is my Sunday column for the Oct. 14, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

The Swedish Connection
By Aaron J. Brown

In reviewing my family history files I always thought the Swedish villages where my great-grandmother's family is from seemed more like a random collection of letters that have no meaning. Recently I met some Swedish journalists to unravel the mystery. They told me my family came from a random collection of letters that have no meaning.

Of course, those journalists weren’t in Hibbing to help me with my identity problems. They were here for the same reason thousands of people come to Hibbing every year: to find out more about the hometown of Bob Dylan, and to a lesser extent the Greyhound Bus Company.

In last month’s “Rolling Stone” cover story, Dylan said, “We can't change the present or the future. We can only change the past, and we do it all the time.” How true. In telling and retelling stories of the past we imagine much more than we actually know. We tell what we like; we ignore what bores or troubles us. But what of the present?

Dylan connects more people to the Iron Range than anyone would have expected back when young Bobby Zimmerman lit out from here 53 years ago. People in Hibbing tend to focus on small details, like how he was “odd” in high school, or how he hasn’t played a free concert at the auditorium. (Kevin McHale, the Hall of Fame basketballer from Hibbing, runs gun safety clinics sometimes! Where are you, Bobby?) Point is, people all over the world are deeply moved by Dylan’s work and find local attitudes about Dylan to be adorable.

Dylan and Greyhound brought Kristin Lundell, a well-regarded music writer in Sweden, and Karin Grip, a photographer for one of the nation’s largest newspapers, to Hibbing earlier this month. It helps that Lundell’s mother is from the same Swedish town as the founder of the Greyhound Bus Company, which traces its origins to Hibbing. She’s writing a book on that topic, along with a newspaper story on Dylan. Even though I am only a “pop historian,” unlike most Iron Rangers I maintain a large Google footprint, so I get to meet folks like Kristin and Karin. (Google is a website).

After determining that someone, probably me, transcribed my Swedish ancestry incorrectly at some point, we conversed. Living in the woods as I do, it is good for me to actually communicate with humans in real time on occasion, if only for humility. For instance, don’t describe someone as “obviously Swedish” because they are blonde and attractive. You know who will give you the skunk eye? Brunette Swedes, that’s who.

I felt slightly better after asking a very sensitive question that’s been weighing on me recently. “Is it OK to talk to Swedish people about the Swedish Chef from The Muppets?” Thank God, it is! They’re used to it. Is the Swedish chef speaking Swedish? No, though my family’s vaguely Swedish port of origin was probably written in the Swedish Chef’s language. In any event, this was not the international incident I feared.

For a long time, American history has been built around the idea that people from all over the world came here to escape something or find opportunity. But the convoluted family tree shared by me and many modern Iron Rangers shows that it’s hard to look back with any clarity. What is clearer is that, at present, the world is more connected than ever. Simple things like music and stories translate with relative ease, and people can communicate in an instant -- without the cumbersome overseas journey and risk of death faced by my forbearers.

It’s amazing how my ancestors took enormous leaps of faith to meet each other in a new land, while Bob Dylan brings pieces of their history back to me. In addition to my conversation with the Swedes, a new friend from England has done much to connect me with my Cornish history, including a decorative wall hanging describing the proper way to make a Cornish pasty. Last week I went to Atlanta and visited the Coke museum. Within moments of posting a picture of me with the Coke polar bear, David shared one of him with the same bear.

The past is important, but as Dylan said it can be changed. There is no substitute for the present. It sits perfectly on the border between what we can control and what we can’t.

Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from the Iron Range. He writes MinnesotaBrown.com and hosts the 91.7 KAXE’s Great Northern Radio Show on public stations. The next show airs next Saturday from 5-7 p.m. at the Boardman Theatre at Eveleth-Gilbert High School in Eveleth. Admission is free. Arrive by 4:30 p.m.

Saturday morning's "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE will share "movie moments." Film professor Jack Nachbar and KAXE "Mom of Pop Culture" Julie Crabb will take nominations for great movie moments and lead a discussion of how our lives intersect with these moments.

The show runs 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota, 90.5 KBXE in Bemidji and 89.9 in Brainerd; live stream at kaxe.org. My essay is often in the first half hour. My selection? The photo is a hint. Tune in Saturday morning or check the archives next week.

Since we're talking about "moments," I'll also share one of my past essays about "Moments in Time." What period in time would you rather live? I type my way back into alternate realities, but conclude that there is no time quite like the present. People seemed to like this one.



Download the file here if the player doesn't work. And it usually doesn't. If I were a bigger deal I would work on this but I know that if you, dear reader, are reading this, you'll just click the link.

Sometimes you get tired of explaining the same thing, over and over, so here is a haiku describing the political, economic and geological issue of our time on northern Minnesota's Iron Range.

They say with new rocks,
mined clean, our kids prosper.
They speak truth, we hope.

People think that the issue of precious mineral mining in northern Minnesota comes down to "Jobs vs. the Environment." Maybe it does in some ways. But, besides "jobs," the central thrust of the argument to mine new minerals is two-fold:

1. We can mine this stuff cleaner than ever before, nothing like those old mine sites that were closed down decades ago or ones that cause great damage today in other nations.
2. There is so much mineral wealth down below northern Minnesota that we'd be stupid not to mine it; the world needs it and we can mine it cleaner (See #1). 

That's the argument. And there's news on this front. According to the Duluth News Tribune, PolyMet has run a successful test of its sulfate scrubbing technology. I'd be more comfortable if the picture didn't look like a moonshine still in a shed somewhere, but it is at least something worth discussing. Bear in mind that a full scale implementation of this technology would need to be maintained for many years and with much more water at stake.

Meantime, not unsurprisingly, vast wealth estimates of these ore reserves (copper, nickel, palladium, etc.) are also being released, though interestingly even the optimists know that not all of the ore is economically feasible to mine.

That is, fundamentally, the crux of this situation. The bigger issue is not whether the pro-mining guy or the pro-mining guy who hates the EPA win the Congressional election, but rather whether the technology works and whether companies have the financial incentive to make a long-term investment in these new plants. Inevitable costs ahead include proving the very environmental and economic claims developers use to settle environmental opposition to their projects.

So, let's prove it. Test it on a large scale with legitimate financial assurance against damages. The first permits go to the first company willing to do this. If that's too expensive, perhaps these companies aren't really committed to mining for more than just a few years, rendering all of this a tremendous misplacement of energy. That's the conversation we should be having.

The campaign for Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District now enters its final weeks. Politico recently profiled the race, showing a wider view of the contest than we see in the more earnest, adorable local media. The first debate between incumbent Rep. Chip Cravaack and challenger Rick Nolan was Tuesday.

And now the polls. We've long been waiting for an independent, public pollster's snapshot of this district. Two years ago it was Survey USA's poll that showed Cravaack rapidly gaining on Jim Oberstar. There was much hand-wringing by the DFL about the crosstabs of that poll -- heck, from me, too. But crosstabs be damned, the topline was about right at the time.

The SUSA October 2012 topline: Nolan 46, Cravaack 45. It's a statistical tie, with a slight edge to the challenger.

I still see odd things in the crosstabs of this one. For instance, I don't see why Romney and Cravaack would both lead in cell-phone only households. But I must admit the the totals "feel" about right.

Meantime, the Nolan campaign has released results of an internal poll by a firm called Victoria Research showing Nolan with a 48-44 lead. Their poll also claims a 63 percent negative job approval of Cravaack. Naturally, we don't have crosstabs on the campaign poll.

These polls show that Democratic Party surveys showing a close race in August were right and that millions of dollars spent have jiggled, but not moved, the needles. And hey, why not? An 18-month DFL primary campaign didn't change the conventional wisdom either. Cravaack has now raised almost $2 million, including almost half a million this last quarter. We're going to see a lot more ads. And maybe those ads will help Cravaack pull ahead, as he did in 2010. This one in particular, aimed at peeling off Iron Range Democratic voters, is crushingly good:



But Cravaack's path to victory is just as narrow as Nolan's. His ceiling is right where he left it -- dang near 50 percent. The only thing that will stop this madness is when we drive the wooden stake of our vote into the vampire carcass that is this election on Nov. 6. Then we'll really know. A Nolan victory makes us a DFL-leaning swing district. A Cravaack victory makes it a GOP-leaning swinger, though a two-term Cravaack would probably be even harder to beat in the future.


But let's go back to that SUSA poll. What's funny about it is that the demographic breakdown looks like the opposite of most partisan races. Younger people are seen favoring Cravaack, the conservative Republican, while older voters seem to support Nolan, the progressive Democrat. I know a lot of my blog pals will be quick to call "bull" on that, and I do think that it's really hard to phone poll young people and young families for a lot of logistical reasons. Nevertheless, I will go out on a limb to drop this bombshell:

Young people who live and work in northern Minnesota are more conservative than their parents and considerably more conservative than their grandparents.

No, I don't think that they've been adding Essence d'Edmund Burke into the drinking water or anything. It's not that young people here have gone through an ideological transformation fueled by academic research of governing philosophies. Liberal parents are still more likely to have liberal children. Conservative parents are more likely to have conservative children. The issue is that some children grew up to live here, work here and vote here. Other children grow up to move to Duluth or Minneapolis. Guess which group is conservative and which is liberal?

On the Iron Range in particular we 20- and 30-somethings are sorting ourselves. My most liberal friends, with a few exceptions, have by and large tracked to a city. Keith Ellison will get as many Range youth votes as Rick Nolan does. My most conservative friends, with a few exceptions, are still here. And most of them are likely to vote for Cravaack. I think this is happening all over the "woods and waters" region of the 8th District. There will remain conservatives and liberals on the Range, but the old 80-20 days of DFL victories will be gone.

That sounds pretty rough for the DFL and it could well be. But there is a silver lining for Democrats. Duluth is gaining population and becoming more economically diverse. I dare say that Duluth is becoming more liberal while the Range is becoming more conservative, and that these changes more or less offset one another.

That is why this election is still close.

It boils down to the fact that this is the first time MN-8 has functioned as a pure toss-up swing district. We don't yet know how different voting populations will react to the vast amounts of spending and negative ads we're getting up here. Perhaps they will act "normally"; perhaps they will react differently.

But in the days after Election Day 2012 we'll be able to go through the map of the district and know much more about the 21st century composition of this vaunted political landscape.

The United Steelworkers and Cliffs Natural Resources have reached a tentative labor agreement for workers at Hibbing Taconite and United Taconite in Eveleth. This was the last company to formally negotiate an agreement with the Steelworkers after last month's averted Iron Range mining strike.