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Welcome to the age of electoral volatility Date published: 10/29/2008 By Ed Jones WHAT'S UP You know politics has gone a little screwy when that one-time bastion of Democratic devotion, West Virginia, leans to the GOP, and when Virginia shows signs of going for a Democrat for president for the first time in 44 years. But the weirdness winner of the past few years has to be Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, where, as Garrison Keillor has noted, "all the children are above average." For years, Minnesota has churned out bread-and-butter national Democrats who fall a step or two short of the White House--Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale. But then came that first sign of wackiness. Minnesotans decided back in 1998 that a one-time professional wrestler named The Body (Jesse Ventura) would make a fine governor--finer than the son of Hubert Humphrey. That produced four years of gubernatorial antics. When the Ventura interval ended, it was hard to place the former governor on the political spectrum. Ventura was more grumpy than ideological, which is great for wrestling fans, but tiring for voters. Now Minnesotans seem to be veering to the ideological ends of the spectrum. Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann suggested on national TV that the media ought to do an expose on who in Congress is pro-America and who is anti-America. That stunning statement has turned her from a sure bet for re-election to an endangered incumbent. And now Minnesota voters appear poised to dump incumbent GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, who had been widely respected as mayor of St. Paul, in favor of a former "Saturday Night Live" writer with a sharp edge and a tendency to miss deadlines for paying his taxes--Democrat Al Franken. And just to confuse matters a bit more, the VP speculation this year didn't include one of those old-time Minnesota Democrats. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty made John McCain's short list. So what gives? A former GOP state senator might knock off the incumbent Democratic governor of reliably liberal Washington state. A former Democratic governor has a chance of claiming one of die-hard conservative Mississippi's U.S. Senate seats. Welcome to the age of electoral volatility. Ed Jones: 540/374-5401
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