With just seven days until the general election, Tim Walz, DFL candidate for Minnesota governor, stopped in International Falls Tuesday morning to talk.
“It’s not just about voting for candidates, it’s about voting for the future,” he said.
Campaigns are supposed to be job interviews, he told a group of people at an early morning meet and greet. And while hitting the campaign trail is to allow voters to get to know the candidates, Walz said he’s grateful for the opportunity to know Minnesota in a way he’d never imagined, from inside coffee shops, living rooms and work places.
“If you want a governor that’s going to do things with civility, who is going to try and bring us together on the issues, to stand up to the president when they’re starting to bring values that don’t reflect Minnesota, I will do that,” he said.
But he’s not a Pollyanna, he said, describing the events of the past week, when public servants and elected officials received bombs in their mailboxes and United States citizens were killed at their house of worship. Now is time for healing and coming together; instead, he said, President Donald Trump blames the news media, whom Walz called the defenders of democracy who tell America’s stories.
“Our alternatives are to fall into that cynicism, or do what we’ve always done and rise above it and plan a different path,” he said, adding that others are planning a path of fear based on division and demonizing immigrants.
He pointed to Minnesota’s history and sense of service that he said began just after statehood, when Minnesotans were the first volunteers at Gettysburg, and extended with iron from the Iron Range that forged the tanks that liberated Europeans we never knew, and innovation that transformed medicine.
“Minnesota set a tone, and our politics have set a tone... that are rising up and making a voice that there can be decency in Minnesota,” he said. “’One Minnesota’ is not a campaign theme, it’s a way of seeing the world. It’s an understanding that as International Falls goes, so goes north Mankato, as Worthington goes, so goes Winona, that we invest together in transportation, invest in our people, in schools.”
Greater equity in distribution of money in the state is needed to keep rural schools from asking voters to approve bonds to fix leaky roofs when some suburban schools are building domed playing fields, he said.
He was reminded of the Minnesota Miracle, which in the 1980s helped level the playing field among communities by distributing some of the property taxes from the wealthiest communities to communities with fewer residents and lower property tax, allowing every child, no matter where they lived, to get a world class education.
A shift away from the Minnesota Miracle has created “have and have nots,” as well as make it more difficult to have a trained workforce in communities with fewer educational opportunities.
Locally, he said it’s important the state ensures International Falls receive local government aid, makes sure property taxes go back into the economy, and places a focus on equity in education to make sure the community has a well qualified workforce.
The other piece is infrastructure, which Walz said includes broadband internet.
“You have the quality of life of the people who live up here, if you have access to high speed broadband that’s the same as Minneapolis or Mankato, if you have highways, bridges and the ability to move things, people, goods and ideas, businesses will come here because of the quality of life — low crime rates, outdoor activities, beauty and all that.”
He said relying on property taxes to pay for schools and services in greater Minnesota is why many communities have been left behind.
Walz said health care should be a basic human right, and Minnesotans shouldn’t need to go broke paying for their children to go to the doctor.
“There’s a better way to do that,” he said of the concerns about school funding, health care and infrastructure needs. “That’s what this election is about. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
And Walz said the issues are not because there is not enough money to go around. “There is a lot of money in these tax cuts — 80 percent of it went to the top 1 percent,” he said. “Most of the folks out there frustrated in 2016 to vote, were frustrated for a reason: They were working hard and not getting a raise, health care costs were going up and they wondered what was in it for them.”
And while Walz said he understands the frustration they had, he believes they voted in the wrong direction, for something that wasn’t going to serve their best interests.
Now, he said people are looking for civility and solutions from their leaders, and he said his campaign has focused on the positives and what he would do for the state, instead of negative ads about his opponent.
“I think my opponent has misread Minnesotans,” he said. “We don’t fear the future, we create the future... We’ve got 170 hours until an election that will determine redistricting... to quit playing defense and start playing offense in this state again... to change the tone of how we do politics and see our neighbors as potential allies to fix things.”
He said Minnesotans must fight deliberate attempts to divide the metro from the greater parts of Minnesota, encourage racial divisions in the state, and divide people by religion.
“Realize what’s on the horizon if we don’t get this right,” he said. “The stakes are high.”
Meanwhile, he said “Fear is an incredible short-term motivator,” joking that as a fourth-grade teacher he knows this well. “Fear does not change behaviors, fear does not inspire, fear is not what built this state; it was the hopefulness and sense of community,” he said.
He said his opponent describes a single payer health care system supported by Democrats to be the worst thing in the world. But he said people on Medicare and Social Security, similar systems, seem satisfied.
And while the focus is on health care, he said it needs to shift to making sure disease and illness are prevented, and cancer and other diseases are cured by the state’s medical research schools. Last year, the nation spent $740 billion on defense and $29 billion on the National Institutes of Health.
“Minnesota can have the healthiest population out there,” he said. That, coupled with a world class education system will make sure a well qualified, healthy and abundant workforce is available to deliver goods.
The state now has a shortage of trained workers, and a lot of people worried about health care. “What we’re talking about is a much better way to go about (solving those concerns),” he said.
