Feeling Sick - Last night's

Feeling Sick - Last night's "memorial" for Wellstone went far beyond being a partisan canonization of a political figure for purely political gain; way beyond being a four-hour commercial for the DFL.

It was a lot scarier than that.

If you don't live here, it's hard to describe. Maybe it's like this elsewhere in the country. All I know is, it's totally on the sleeve of this state, and showed in spades last night. It's something that started as a vague sense of unease seven years ago, when I first started becoming active in politics in Minnesota. It grew to a more coherent notion in 2000. It whacked me over the head when the mob booed the assembled Republican senators.

Hatred of Republicans is part of the majority, *mainstream* DFL culture in Minnesota.

Not dislike. Not disagreement. Hate.

You see it in bits of day to day life in this state: women theatrically holding their noses when talking about Republican candidates at the coffee shop; people who put "No Republicans Need Apply" at the top of personal ads; a mob of 15,000 mainstream, work-a-daddy, hug-a-mommy Minnesotans baying at the moon at the recognition of Republicans.

This is not the lunatic fringe; it's not analogous to the rantings of those Republicans who act from hate, the party's loud but isolated homophobes, anti-immigrants, clinic-bombing-coddlers. This is the mainstream of the Minnesota DFL.

I really don't like my neighbors too much today.