The Republicans Are Coming

For the better part of a year now, the Twin Cities has been publicly fretting about the arrival of the Republicans in September. Are we clean enough, organized enough, prepared enough? Will they like us—or at least respect us? (And of course, this being America, will there be profits?) Who are we hosting—an ordinary political party that’s convened every four years for a century and a half, or the in-laws? A nominating convention is not a family marriage—though there might be strange resemblances.

It is not, after all, as if we have no experience with this in St. Paul. In 1892, when the ghosts of the frontier and old Pig’s Eye still rumbled about on Robert Street, the Republicans convened to nominate Benjamin Harrison and his vice president, Levi Morton, for a second term. They would face—for the second time—Grover Cleveland, who would beat them, winning the only nonconsecutive second term in our history. Harrison’s was a failed presidency, maybe not unlike George Bush’s, though without an Iraq war. Instead, Harrison presided over the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, a Pyrrhic victory of shock and awe that, in retrospect, we might have preferred not to win so decisively.

Harrison and the Repulicans in Congress had been lambasted for “big spending,” which reached the astonishing height of $1 billion, hence their nickname: the “Billion-Dollar Congress.” That seems mere pocket change to us, who are well into the trillions of deficit spending, but it was surely the milestone that led us to our current majestic rows of zeros. “Big spending” is not an easy charge for a conservative party to defend itself against, then or now. Maybe our history does provide, if not lessons, then at least a few timely reminders.

But in 2008, 116 years after their first visit, the Republicans return to St. Paul, no Pig’s Eye now but part of a burgeoning metropolis of several million, with all the accoutrements of the modern city: impacted freeways, far-flung suburbs, crime, noise, poverty, but world-class culture, sports, shopping. Now, as then, St. Paul is a city of immigrants and diverse cultures: in 1892, Scandinavians, Germans, Irish; now Hmong, Latino, African and more. English, when spoken at all, is delivered with a gaggle of accents and grammars. In 1892, Minnesota was a safely Republican state, and stayed that way for a long time afterwards. After the ’30s it veered left for the next 50 or 60 years, seldom appearing in the Republican presidential column. Now it is said to teeter on the brink between them—a swing state. The conservative governor, Tim “No Taxes” Pawlenty, is touted often as a veep possibility. The main suspense is over. John McCain will run at the top. Will Minnesotans like him enough to vote for him? No one yet knows, but September will certainly exacerbate the gods of buzz and speculation in the national media.

The metropolitan press (Pioneer Press and Star Tribune if they both—or either—survive till September) has been filled with entertaining stories of convention preparations and the worries and quarrels provoked by them. Minnesota is, after all, famous for its Lutheran cleanliness and order. We like to keep the house “nice” in case company should stop for a visit. The Republicans are just another form of out-of-town company. The city of Minneapolis fretted that the bridges and public spaces were blighted with pigeon poop, thus in need of a crew—thus a budget—to get it clean, and keep it that way. Fine the birds for public disorder? Banish them to North Dakota or Wisconsin? In St. Paul, the proposal to extend bar hours till 4 a.m. so that tired Republicans and reporters would have a little extra time to relax after a hard day’s politicking was greeted with displeasure by St. Paul’s mayor, who said he had no desire to have Republicans vomiting on the streets of St. Paul. They will have to go to Minneapolis to do their vomiting. St. Paul, I suppose, wins the scouts’ cleanliness and prudence merit badge.

A right-wing columnist for the Star Tribune has worried publicly about rampaging leftie bicyclists massing into bike panzer divisions to commit civil disobedience by impeding the flow of auto traffic, thus halting the progress of patriotism. All those Mercedeses and limos stopped cold by steely wild-eyed bikers … On the other hand, a kindly Fortune 500 health insurer is providing 1,000 bikes to the Twin Cities for the Republicans to pedal from smoke-filled room to room (though no cigars now in smoke-free Minnesota). Seventy-five bikes are a gift to the Twin Cities, but 925 return to the company. There’s not that much profit in health care. The company is covering its political and public relations tracks. A thousand bikes go to the Democrats in Denver, too.

Another columnist worries that the dismal condition of our roads—giant devouring potholes—might be too much for delicate Republican constitutions. “Some of the potholes on I-94,” he says, “could swallow the entire Idaho delegation. This wouldn’t prove a problem to Democrats, though, who “are more acclimated to potholes, most of them living in cities held together with asphalt patches.” Bloomington, which had previously no ordinances for demonstrations, passed one requiring fees, permits, deposits and route plans for any assembly more than 25. The ACLU protested, but Bloomington stood by its guns. We seem to expect the crazies of the world, to say nothing of an assembly of terrorists, to converge on the Twin Cities to create chaos, upheaval, a replay of Chicago in 1968. This will require extra police, riot squads, maybe the Guard (if there are any not in Iraq and available) and, of course, public money. Conventions have gotten expensive in our violent, security-conscious age. A newly released local detective novel (Phantom Prey by John Sandford) puts his “hero Lucas Davenport on the Security Committee for the upcoming Republican Convention in St. Paul.” (We’ll know in a few months if the Capitol becomes “toast,” with protesters running amok, as Davenport fears.) We’ve invented the future in Minnesota already in our mind’s eye and it doesn’t look too cheerful or even palatable to us.

Was it like this in 1892? Probably not. Horse manure would have been the main removal and sanitation problem, not vomit and potholes and radicals. Still, if we are going to live up to our reputation for “clean” and “nice,” we’ll have to put on a good face and practice our hosting skills and civility.