Swing State Swing: Minnesota

We asked our chief political writer, David Paul Kuhn, to get in a car and drive from Portland, Maine to Portland, Ore., via all the Battleground States – those states expected to be the most hotly contested in the presidential election. Armed with a pen, laptop, camera and plenty of No Doz, Kuhn is sending back dispatches that will offer impressions and snapshots of a country making up its mind.

Nodine

Crossing the Mississippi River into Minnesota, where the land drops into the wide waters that cut the country, there is a small town called Nodine. It's the first stop, as this coast-to-coast journey turns from west to south.

There, holding a long blue device meant to locate metallic objects beneath the ground, Bob Keister stands in a red shirt and kakis. "This tool is what we use to find Democrats out in Minnesota," he quips, "and we've got several that we buried underneath here."

His expression unflinching, he dares a laugh.

"This is as close to God's country that you are ever going to get," says Bob, standing near the center of Nodine, assisting a player he once coached.

"God's country" seems often to be Republican country. This part of Minnesota, well south of the Twin Cities, is conservative. Bob is at home here. He leans heavily Republican, but isn't a diehard.

"I'm a Bush man," he says. But he did vote for Bill Clinton "the first time." Why not the second? "I don't want to go into all of that. You know the reasons."

Minnesota has not voted for a Republican president since Richard Nixon in 1972. But George W. Bush only lost by two percentage points in 2000. Bob is hoping the three-decade Democratic streak ends in November.

"I think [President Bush] is an honorable man. I think he's done a good job," Bob says. "He went into Iraq, but that's an iffy. But everyone said let's go. So he's been put in a precarious position.

"But I think that eventually we'll come out of this. It's going to be tough, it's going to be long, but I think the American people have to understand that this not going to be easy," he speaks. An acre behind, a red barn looms over the green horizon.

Bob served in the army from 1954 to 1956 in Alaska. He's fond of saying, "I went into the coldest place for the Cold War.""

He married his wife up there "when Alaska was a territory." It's been 49 years. But 50, Bob says, is just a number. "It's been a great run."

For 32 years, Bob coached and taught at Winona State University, mainly football. He's now retired and looking forward to the early September reunion of the championship team of 1964.

"They come back, all the kids, and they don't talk about how good you treated them but how bad you did," he says, chuckling. "And then they just like to rip you. And I guess that's what I enjoy more than anything."

It's moments like those that remind Bob that the media gets it wrong. People are not that polarized over politics, he insists.

"You know, when you get out amongst the real people, you hear a lot of stuff on TV today, but when you get amongst the people they're very downplayed about it," he says. "They talk about it," but Bob says that for most people, championships and college days seems to always matter more.

Rochester

Down Route 90, into Rochester, is one of the world's best hospitals. Amy Trebil, 23, a nurse at the famed Mayo Clinic, hasn't decided yet.

"I'm leaning more toward Kerry. I just like his opinions on war, on going to war, more than what Bush has done so far," she says, just ending her shift. She's only been a nurse for three weeks.

"I'm very nervous. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot to learn," she admits with a smile. "I'm just trying to do my job well."

She leans away from President Bush because "I don't agree with the fact that he's kept the troops there so long; that we keep going back and nothing's really getting settled over there."

And she does like Kerry. She used the word "like," a rarity among those interviewed so far, even those intending to vote Democratic.

"I like how [Kerry] portrays himself to the people. And I like his ideas, and so I haven't decided for sure yet," she adds. "We'll see. I don't know. I'll watch them. I don't really know what will make up my mind."

Pushing his daughter in her stroller, heading toward the Mayo Clinic, Paul Scott says, "'d like it if the United States would take some steps to restore its credibility in the rest of the world."

He's voting for John Kerry with the hope he can get the U.S. some respect. On the way to see his wife, who works at the clinic, Paul says he's not a staunch Democratic.

"I just haven't met a Republican presidential candidate I wanted to vote for yet," he explains.

The 40-year-old writer says, "It is important that our leaders not try to push a religious agenda on the United States. I think it is more important that we have more respect for science research," he continues. "And I think it's more important that we are more prudent with the spending."

At a produce stand near Rochester, selling native sweet corn, peaches and plums, is Heather Hamilton. All of 18, she works for a farm about eight miles outside town.

"Yeah," she says with a giggle, it does make her feel like an adult to vote for president.

Wearing a tie-dyed shirt, her brown hair pulled back and a money belt around the waist of her jeans, she wagers, "probably Kerry."

"But I don't know. I don't really know many issues on the whole election," she says, traffic whizzing by as customers skim the parking lot produce stand. "I don't really like the way Bush handled the war and I don't really like the war in general. But basically that's the only issue I really know about."

Heather is against abortion. She is upset about Iraq. But she leans toward the pro-choice Democratic nominee. Iraq clearly trumps an issue that for decades seemed the high card of the divisive.

"Oh, I probably won't watch the debate," she says. She'll make up her mind on "just anything I hear or read, see on the news."

Her parents are neither Democrats nor Republicans. She thinks President Bush "does a fairly good job about everything besides the war." But the war, she repeats, is "pretty much all I know about."

In two weeks, she starts college in Wisconsin. She doesn't know her major, "just going in undecided." She'll decide on the election first, "since I don't have to make my major decision for another two years."

But she is voting. "It's kind of nice to know maybe you can make a difference just by voting."

Albert Lea

Twenty-five year old Sergio Hernandez has three children and another one on the way. He's a laborer just outside this small city. He's undecided about the election, seriously considering who deserves his vote.

"I'm debating. I've heard things about Bush, I've heard things about Kerry. I've heard good and bad things," he says. "I have to listen more and hear more about what they say."

Four years ago he voted for Bush. But "he's cut programs and stuff like that," Sergio says. "It was a good and bad decision on the war. Terrorists, you know. It could have went different, it could have went a lot better."

What he understands of John Kerry: "I've heard he was a Vietnam vet, you know."

"With that, he has experience on war," Sergio continues, standing on an empty city block lined with small shops. Kerry's "got more knowledge, what can go wrong in a war. He's been there."

But war hasn't touched Sergio. Outsourcing overshadows any issue he mentions. That's personal. That's his family, his livelihood, his children's health insurance.

"If jobs go overseas, my job is in jeopardy also, and I'm happy with my job," he says, as his two boys scamper around him and he leans on his one-year old's stroller.

"I could be making more," Sergio says. But, he adds, "I don't like to see my job go overseas. That's me being selfish, but I like to have a job, you know."

Out here, you can support a family and get a home, Sergio says. But he deals with some racism, too. The Mexican-American says he can take it, but when he tells that his children have "encountered it with a few people," his tone goes somber yet stern.

"It upsets me very much," he says of the stares and quick words. "We're all created equal, you know."

And so the self-described undecided voter will see which candidate can speak to him on jobs, on Iraq.

"It's not until November," he says. "I've got a lot of time to think about it. I just want to get my knowledge. I want to make my choice."

By David Paul Kuhn