by Hank Long
The sound of a game-show-like spinning wheel was almost as constant as the smell of frying food on a stick along a stretch of Underwood Street on a mostly radiant Wednesday afternoon. A line of about five dozen people snaked along the boulevard that stretched south to Ye Old Mill on Carnes Avenue.
“You have landed on a COVID whistleblower line!” a volunteer shouted from behind the “NEVER FIGHT” stand to the crowd of onlookers who were either cheering, jeering, or indifferent.
“You narrowly missed ‘Stolen Courage!’” someone shouted from the gathered crowd.
The participants spinning in a circle, two teenage women, politely accepted their “Never Walz” fans, attached them to the vast bag of their backpacks, and left.
They were two of about 5,000 visitors to our stand every day, said Jesse Smith, an employee of Action for Liberty.
The conservative grassroots organization deliberately ensured provocative presence at the Great Minnesota Get-Together the last few years. The booth’s location changed from time to time, but no matter where it appeared from year to year, Action for Liberty’s political critique of DFL policies and politicians usually drew a vast crowd.
Especially this time, when one of the most habitual targets of criticism of the organization is Governor Tim Walz, who is now vice president candidate to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“We had to be nimble this time,” said Erik Mortensen, a former Republican legislator from Shakopee and president of Action for Liberty, describing planning for the annual stand, which typically draws a vast crowd of fans as well as a fair few foes.
Moving from one political topic to another in anticipation of the fair
Earlier this year, the organization planned to run again with its “Dump Biden”-themed booth, which it said had been a success at the Minnesota State Fair in 2023. But those plans changed abruptly in mid-July when former President Donald Trump was shot by a potential assassin during a political rally in Pennsylvania. Mortensen said the organization quickly planned to change the theme of the booth to “Never Surrender,” a tribute to Trump’s spirit and survival. They designed and ordered personalized T-shirts featuring that now-indelible image of Trump with a raised fist as the Secret Service escorted him offstage, just seconds after shots rang out. But those plans changed again when Harris, Biden’s newly christened Democratic successor, announced on Aug. 6 that she had chosen Walz as her vice presidential running mate.
The Never Walz booth is about 40 steps south of where Walz set up his political booth the past two years at the fair. While the two-term Democratic governor was noticeably absent from the fairgrounds where he campaigns with Harris across the country, his presence is still felt.
“We knew [Walz being picked to run with Harris] was going to be the political theme of the fair,” Mortensen said, wearing a red hat with “Walz Lies” written on the front. “There are so many people who come to visit who are motivated to vote for Trump. And now that Walz is on the ticket, they are even more determined to get Trump back in the White House. They know how horrible he was to Minnesota.”
The booth has become such a popular attraction that it has had to carefully ration the number of “Never Walz” fans it hands out each day to visitors who spin a wheel that lists eight issues Smith says voters most criticize the waltz: “Tax hikes, Minneapolis burning, mask mandates, tampons in men’s rooms, small businesses crushed, transgender surgery for children, theft of courage and the COVID-19 whistleblower line.” When all is said and done, the booth will have given out more than 20,000 fans to fairgoers, Smith said.
Party stands full of people
At the DFL Party booth, just two blocks away on Dan Patch Avenue and Cooper Street, the mood was just as energetic and the crowd just as vast. Several dozen people took the time to glance at a wall adorned with no fewer than 30 politically charged T-shirts for sale, some with basic slogans like “Kamala” and “Team Harris-Walz,” others like “OMG GOP WTF” and “Land of 10,000 Rights.”
Along the plaza in front of the DFL booth, workers from the progressive political action committee Alliance for a Better Minnesota camped out to encourage people to sign up for a mailing list in exchange for fans with a quote from former U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone on one side and the organization’s logo on the other.
The Minnesota Republican Party booth was also bustling with activity, including guests who spoke with two congressional candidates, Tad Jude and Joe Teirab. Both said the guests seemed more informed than ever about policy issues and candidates.
“It’s all about inflation, public safety and accountability for government spending,” said Jude, a former judge, legislator and county commissioner who is running as a Republican in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District. “We see these big government programs that are just total failures, not well-managed. That’s a problem for people who live in [CD3]“And these are the topics that the people I met at the fair want to discuss.”
For Teirab, a former federal prosecutor and military veteran who is challenging incumbent Congresswoman Angie Craig in the 2nd District, all the talk at the fair centers on inflation.
“They’re telling me they can’t afford groceries, they can’t afford car bills, they can’t afford energy costs,” Teirab said. “Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris economy is to blame for that, and Angie Craig voted unanimously for that.”
But voters are not neglecting state issues, said state Sen. Mark Koran, who has become a regular at the fair, both in the Minnesota Senate booth in the Education Building and in the Republican Party booth along Carnes Avenue.
“It’s fascinating because with Walz’s rise into the presidential race, people are just now starting to learn about all the spending, all the extreme legislation that the DFL has passed and Walz has signed over the last two years,” Koran said, taking a break from being filmed by a CNN crew that he said was working on a story about politics at the Minnesota State Fair. “We’re talking about a lot of these bad Democratic ideas, and people think they’re just Republican propaganda outlets. And then they find out the Democrats passed them into law.”
No shortage of the art of waltz
Even away from the more obvious places to find political meat at the state fair, there was no escaping the “Walz effect.” In the agriculture building, a line of onlookers marveled at the weighty dose of Walz- and Harris-themed crop art installations adorning the walls, among a few nonpolitical works of art.
A Crop Art Exhibit employee told Alpha News that the exhibit sees several hundred people every hour during the show’s peak hours. Viewers of several of the Walz tributes on display picked out their favorites, including one Walz painting made from 14 different varieties of seeds, with the quote, “They’re just weird.”
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AlphaNews contributor Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose career includes reporting on the Minnesota Legislature, city and county governments, and the commercial real estate industry.
Photos: AlphaNews / Hank Long.
