By John Letzing
Minnesota has a reputation for folksy, warm-and-fuzzy Democrats, from late Senator Paul Wellstone to Presidential would-be Walter ‘Fritz’ Mondale. This is the state where the Democratic Party is still officially known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, after all. But as the presidential election nears, do citizens of this battleground state have reason to fear a new breed of Democrat? An angry, out of control Democrat? The Republican Party of Minnesota thinks so. The local G.O.P. has launched a web site, WhenAngryDemocratsAttack.com, to warn constituents about a recent rash of anti-Bush hate crimes.
Fortunately, the attacks have mostly been confined to vandalizing property, such as campaign signs. But the perpetrators of these crimes (none of which have been collared yet) are not only spray-painting and burning signs – G.O.P. supporters were reportedly roughed up at the state fair, and one angry Dem went as far as driving a pickup truck onto someone’s front lawn in order to flatten their Bush sign. Most ominously, the most recent Bush sign burning had the unfortunate side effect of also burning a good portion of its owner’s deck.
So who are the angry Democrats behind all of this? Could it be the ornerier, post-2000 Al Gore, or infamous angry man Howard Dean, both of whom are shown baring their teeth on the web site’s home page? Or maybe it was Al Franken, the renowned Republican-wrangler who is also shown on the site, waving a menacing finger in someone’s face?
So far, the G.O.P. can’t say for sure. The best whenagrydemocratsattack.com can guess is that the perpetrators are misguided Minnesotans under the influence of provocateurs like filmmaker Michael Moore, who the site calls “The King of Angry Democrats.” In any case, the local Republicans have had enough of what the site calls “the hatred that has come to define the Democrat Party.” One theory about the new rash of aggression: isn’t it logical that politics would take a physical turn in a state full of ice hockey-worshippers? The site points to at least one instance where rowdy Dems were spotted “hip-checking” a group of college Republicans. No penalties were called.