Aaron B's column: the unique aesthetics of the Iron Range

From MinnesotaBrown.com

Blight Me: the unique aesthetics of the Iron Range By Aaron J. Brown
It’s spring on the Iron Range. I know this because last week we had to hire a guy with a loader to remove a million tons of snow from my rural driveway. Not a plow. A loader. Hello, spring!Maybe it’s just a little bump in the road on our way to the real spring. When real spring finally arrives, our thoughts will turn to the stuff that’s been hiding underneath that snow all winter long. The slow recession of winter’s white canvass reveals old cars, rebar, scrap lumber and sometimes even the fate of stray animals we used to see around (but not so much the last few weeks).

Someone I know who moved to the Iron Range from a small farming town once told me about her first impression of the Iron Range. The first thing she noticed was the rather eclectic collection of cars and other metal goods in people’s yards. I suppose as an Iron Range native I could have feigned outrage over this observation, but I know better. We Iron Rangers are a proud, noble people … who leave things in our yards.

One could argue that my perspective is skewed. I grew up on an Iron Range family-owned salvage yard out in Zim. (I have to be careful. My wife thinks I mention this more often than former presidential candidate John Edwards talked about “the mill). As a kid, if I saw an old car up on blocks in someone’s yard my response was, “what,just one?” We lived in a trailer house just a few dozen feet away from another trailer house that was packed to the ceiling with hubcaps. We would walk back to grandpa and dad’s shop along a path that wound through piles of aluminum cans and hulking dead machines of uncertain purpose. And this was all very normal to us, like oak trees and picket fences of Rockwell’s America.

That’s how it is on the Iron Range. I’ve heard theories that the Range’s love affair with junk has to do with our working class demographics or the fact that early miners weren’t able to own their own land, so they didn’t mind leaving junk out. Heck, maybe we just like junk. After all, the junkyard where I grew up was just a dozen miles north of the now defunct Sanitary Harry’s bar in Kelsey. The late Sanitary Harry ran for governor several times under the promise of “a car in every yard.” His drinking establishment gained a reputation for the odd junk that would be piled both inside and outside the building. In its last years, a friend told me the bar’s owners had literally shellacked random junk to the tabletops.

The first controversy I ever encountered in Iron Range journalism had to do with a county blight ordinance. Folks in the countryside wanted the right to keep spare cars on their property so they could harvest parts when needed. But big government was getting in the way. Cabin owners were complaining and deputies were writing blight tickets. Letters were exchanged. Public outcry against the policy ran surprisingly hot. The blight ordinance is still on the books today, but I don’t see any fewer cars on private properties out in the woods. I assume something of a junk car détente took place behind closed doors.

Junk defines the Range and that’s not all bad. Along the Mesabi Trail near Hibbing, tourists from all over get a good look at rusted pieces of mining equipment that were simply abandoned near their final resting places. Some might question why that stuff was left there. The answer is clear to me. All who see these scrap metal specters know that the Iron Range is a place where people shaped the land and their children long outlived their machines. And that’s who we are.

I don’t mean to diminish the work of so many Iron Rangers in sprucing up their yards, property and homes. Many places around here look like the very picture of Americana. But I have to bear the truth that what many folks remember when they visit the Iron Range is the colorful, blue collar cornucopia of metal that adorns so many other yards. This sharp, rusted world is just coming into focus this time of year. Hey, I don’t mind. It gives the place character.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Aaron's take on Iron Range politics, pt. 2

originally posted at MNBlue.com and Aaron Brown's blog...this is the 2nd in a series about the political climate on the Iron Range of Minnesota.

How to win the Iron Range

Last week I talked about how Range politics centers on personal relationships. The region blends social conservatism with economic liberalism to create a unique environment that plays a big role in state politics and a bigger role in state DFL politics. Though the only Iron Ranger to hold statewide office was Gov. Rudy Perpich, the region has influenced the path of every Democrat and/or Farmer-Laborite elected to statewide office in Minnesota since Floyd B. Olson. But like the statewide DFL, any path to victory must include coalition building.

There are three big factions that make up the DFL’s majority coalition on the Iron Range. This configuration might also apply to many other parts of Minnesota (and the nation, for that matter) but I am focusing on the Range because I’ve run campaigns here. Apply this to your neighborhood how you see fit.

LABOR
Most people associate the Range with labor for good reason. The labor movement has its roots here. I don’t just mean Minnesota’s labor movement. I mean THE LABOR MOVEMENT. There were Wobblies and red flags in the streets here in 1907.

Today’s labor faction on the Range includes old powers like the Steelworkers, Teamsters and all the building trades, but increasingly the word “labor” on the Range refers equally to professional and service workers like AFSCME and Education Minnesota. They usually endorse and work for the same candidate in a primary (notable exception: the Steelworkers and AFSCME on the Iron Range are currently split between Al Franken and Mike Ciresi, respectively, for U.S. Senate).

Labor also represents a steady, though not enormous, source of political financing for local candidates and parties.

PROGRESSIVES
The current progressive voters on the Iron Range are strongly motivated by the Iraq war issue, but they’ve been around a lot longer than that. In fact, this faction has existed since the beginning of the Range and was in the 1910s and ‘20s an offshoot of the Republican Party. They are moralistic, pro-environment and generally refuse to compromise with those in power on issues important to them. Today they vote DFL (and sometimes Independence or Green). For example, Becky Lourey’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006 drew much of its strength from 8th CD progressives. This group fights with the Iron Range legislative delegation all the time, usually behind closed doors but sometimes out front. (Conservative DFL State Rep. David Dill’s 2002 and 2004 primary challenger Bill Hansen was DFL endorsed, due in large part to progressive activists … but Hansen lost both times … more on that later).

Like labor, the progressives are good at making things happen during a campaign but unlike labor they won’t work for candidates they don’t love. Similarly, progressives can raise lots of money if they really like a candidate but raise nothing for those they don’t like.

OPINION LEADERS
Past and present state legislators, party leaders, mayors, city councilors and county commissioners, and – increasingly – lobbyists, consultants and developers. Add to that newspaper editors/publishers, prominent citizens and anyone else who holds more sway on the street than Joe or Jane Ranger. I’d include bloggers if I weren’t the only political blogger I know of on the Iron Range and if my blog got more than 200 hits a week. In the old days, this collection of people would get together and form what we used to call a political machine. There are vestigial remainders of “machine” politics on the Range, but by and large this group is neither unified nor organized. When they DO get together on a candidate or issue, they can sometimes overrule the will of the labor and progressive factions within the DFL (That’s how David Dill beat Bill Hansen twice). However, when they are divided, a unified labor and progressive coalition can beat the conventional wisdom. That’s how State Rep. Tom Anzelc beat Bob Anderson in the 2006 DFL primary for District 3A even though Anderson had the same last name and is related to outgoing State Rep. Irv Anderson. (I ran Tom’s campaign).

Opinion Leaders hold a bit more sway than any other faction because opinion leaders often control the greatest amount of public influence and campaign funding, the latter disproportionately influenced by the aforementioned lobbyists, consultants and developers.

Oh, and Opinion Leaders are not necessarily Democrats. They only trend that way because of the power structure on the Range.

The Republicans have their factions as well.

SOCIAL/RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES
This is the core of the Republican Party on the Iron Range (and the entire 8th Congressional District, for that matter). Deeply pro-life and anti-gay marriage, this group also rivals labor unions in their ability to organize. Unlike labor, their numbers grow each year – even on the Iron Range. I think there’s a ceiling on that, but it’s worth noting.

BUSINESS LEADERS
Business owners, bank managers, stock brokers and others like them have trended Republican since the beginning of the Iron Range. When all the immigrant laborers couldn’t vote – in the 1900s and ‘10s, the Iron Range was a Republican bastion. The last Republican elected in the core of the Iron Range was the late former State Rep. Carl D’Aquila, a Hibbing businessman, who served in the 1950s. Unlike social conservatives, business leaders will cross over to the DFL if the Democrat is more moderate (especially in local races).

LIBERTARIAN/GUN RIGHTS
Democrat or Republican, a NRA endorsement will move 10 and sometimes 20 points in your favor in the general election. Gun rights are a major issue here. The rural edges of the Iron Range – the places where I grew up and currently live – hold a disproportionate number of “libertarian” style voters who distrust government, oppose gun control and vote accordingly. They will vote for gun rights DFLers, but seldom vote for the Democrat in a presidential election.

As I said last time, by the numbers the Iron Range is a solid but improbable DFL stronghold. However, like another Democratic stronghold – the South of the early- to mid-20th Century –the Iron Range elects conservatives and liberals same as anywhere else. We just do all our campaigning in the primary. Business Leaders and libertarians will cross over under the right circumstances, which is why guys like House Majority Leader Tony Sertich will sometimes outperform the DFL’s statewide ticket by 10 or 15 points.

I’ll continue this series in a few days with a piece about the challenges of keeping the positive aspects of Range political tradition while modernizing the parts that no longer work (or never worked). No easy task. One commenter posted that my analysis glosses over the Iron Range’s “cult of personality” that overshadows issues and genuine progress. There’s something to that. I’ll explain.

Aaron Brown blogs about the Iron Range

You might recognize Aaron Brown from his weekly essays on KAXE's Saturday morning program Between You and Me or his contributions to the Morning Show.

Aaron is a man of many hats and along with being a father of 3 under 3 he is an instructor at Hibbing Community College, a columnist with the Hibbing Daily Tribune, a blogger who is involved in DFL Iron Range politics and a writer. You can find more on him on his introduction from his new postings on MNBlue.com. MNBlue.com is described as: providing analysis of, coverage of and snark about Minnesota politics.

Aaron is writing a series of postings about the political culture of the Iron Range on MNBlue.com - check it out:

The Range: where "poli sci" is some kind of ethnic dish and potica is political
Submitted by Minnesota Brown on December 15, 2007 - 12:07pm.
This is the first part of a series of cross-posts about Iron Range political culture for MNBlue.com and the MinnesotaBrown blog.

The first thing you have to know about the Iron Range is that you need to cast aside the conventional wisdom on "rural vs. urban" political trends. The Range is often considered to be a rural area by those who haven't spent much time here. But in truth the Iron Range is an industrial area, larger than Duluth but spread out over a long string of small- to medium-sized mining towns. A local college history instructor, Pam Brunfelt, first explained this analysis to me and it's the best I've encountered. These towns operate much the way neighborhoods function in a large city but the geographic isolation has preserved the kind of rivalry that most cities escape after their first few decades.

At the same time, parts of the Iron Range -- such as the part where I now live in Itasca County and the part where I grew up near Cherry -- are classically rural. But in all cases you can't make the assumption that rural areas naturally break to conservative trends and urban areas naturally skew liberal. For instance, my home township -- Balsam -- tilted just slightly for George W. Bush in 2004 and is home to a strong evangelical Christian community like what you'd expect in a "red" precinct. But state DFLers, because of tradition and personal connections, still do very well here. And then my native Cherry -- which is one of the few legitimate farming communities on the Range -- is solidly liberal (and was home to many socialists at the beginning of the 20th Century, including famous communist Gus Hall).

The cities of the Iron Range are mostly 3-1 DFL towns. Places like Chisholm and Keewatin run about 80 percent DFL in local races. Some of the larger towns -- especially Hibbing, which is the mine managers used to live and control politics back in the pre-WWII era -- have larger communities of Republicans, but the vote totals still tilt 2-1 DFL. In all cases, local DFL candidates run about 10-20 percent better than statewide DFL candidates.

Why? The first rule of Iron Range politics is the importance of personal relationships and sincerity. Traditional modern politicking -- the kind you see from Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney at the national level -- don't jive around here. The Range is (generally though not exclusively) socially conservative and economically liberal. I know several pro-lifers whose opinion on taxes and spending would be considered socialist in the suburbs.

People often wonder why Paul Wellstone did better on the Iron Range than anywhere else when his politics ran slightly to the left of most Rangers. The reason is because the Range will forgive political differences if people perceive the politician's motives as sincere and if the candidate visits often and listens well. So Wellstone thrived here while others have not.

You have to know people, the ara and the history. Political conversations don't begin with "Do you support the Whatsit Bill?" They begin with "I was talking to Eddie Skavich the other day ... ya, he's Bobby's brother ... no they never did find Bobby's thumb ... ya, they found the finger. That was in Buhl ... so ya, are you for the Whatsit?" Now, if you are good at the personal touch, it matters much less if you are for or against the Whatsit bill. Wellstone was a master at this. All the good local pols were born for this stuff.

In future posts I'll talk about the factions that make up the DFL and Republican political spectrum on the Range.
~ MinnesotaBrown

Prosperity on the Range

The Range is trying to get ready for prosperity. It was really hard to write that sentence with conviction. Over the last 26 years, most of the economic news on the Iron Range has been about how people and communities have struggled to ride out the boom and bust times that have characterized the economy of the Range since World War II. Since the 1980s over ten thousand good paying jobs in the taconite industry have disappeared. Now, during a downturn in the U.S. economy, it appears the world steel markets have created a window of opportunity that may dramatically transform the Iron Range. For the first time since iron ore was discovered on the Range, the new Minnesota Steel facility near Nashwauk will produce steel here, rather than ship processed ore to the blast furnaces in Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Mesabi Nugget near Hoyt Lakes will produce an enriched steel pellet that opens up new markets for our ore. I still won't say this will happen for sure, but it seems closer than ever.

The challenge for Iron Range communities is to prepare for the influx of new workers. The new prosperity will create challenges that will strain our ability to recruit, house, and educate a whole new workforce. Thousands of people will move here for the jobs. Will we welcome the new arrivals? Or will their arrival cause social, cultural, or even racial tensions? Wayne Nelson has more on the story in the December edition of Business North.