You know, I just can’t get used to the idea that I’m all of a sudden living in a swing state. The idea that Minnesota’s 10 measly electoral votes could actually make a real difference in a presidential election is almost as foreign to me as the concept that the state could actually go Republican. But according to the latest polls, we’re split right down the middle here in the North Star State, and you can’t turn on the TV or spin the radio dial without getting a bucketful of the kind of political wisdom that has systematically caused half the country to stop voting entirely.

I’m not saying I don’t understand why a boatload of Minnesotans have abandoned the DFL. (For you outsiders, that’s the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party - just our fancy way of saying Dems.) It’s been a complacent party for the last decade or so, and nominating kindly old gents like Roger Moe and Walter Mondale against vibrant young dynamos like Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman is no way to keep your stranglehold on statewide power, especially with the Twin Cities suburbs expanding at a depressingly rapid rate. And I know enough people who were driven straight round the political bend by 9/11 to understand that a lot of partisan leanings have calcified into brick walls in the last few years.

But the thing is, I grew up in a swing state (Pennsylvania), and I remember what defined election years there. It wasn’t inspired debate, or clever politicking, or even a series of pols trying to curry favor with the local populace in hopes of pork-barreling their way into a win. Election years in swing states are all about one thing - money, buckets of it, poured into meaningless attack ads and desperate attempts at one-upsmanship, and none of it being spent to do any actual good for the public at large.

I hated living in that kind of state. Minnesota politics, infuriating as they can be, have always been above that kind of horseshit. But in the last few months, I’ve watched 573 Swift Boat Veterans ads full of bald-faced lies, and seen John Kerry swear on his life that he’s in favor of whatever it is that he thinks people in Rochester would like for Christmas, and it’s taking me right back to my childhood. And that’s not a good thing.

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