It's time for the DFL to drop the "F" and "L" from its name. It's clear that Democrat party elite don't care anymore about either farmers or laborers.
It's a transformation that has been years in the making. Decades ago, no DFLer would be blocking mines and pipelines or trying to regulate farmers out of business. Now it's business as usual for the Democrats. The Twin Cities is the new Democrat power base, and there's no mistaking the party has abandoned Greater Minnesota and the working class.
I believe the heart of Minnesota is still working-class people whose hopes and dreams are pretty simple: They want their kids to have a better life. That means great schools, a growing economy, tight-knit communities, and a public square where people still respect and talk with each other even when they disagree.
That's how I grew up in Detroit Lakes, Minn. After my dad got out of the Marine Corps, he delivered bread to grocery stores for most of his life. He was a union guy. My mom stayed home with as kids and later worked at the county recorder's office. Their hard work and my jobs from the age of 15 paid for my college and law school. They also paved the way for my sister to start her in-home child care business, which she has run for the past 30 years.
It's the American Dream: one generation boosting the next, climbing the economic ladder through hard work and mutual sacrifice in a community where we help each other because we know and care about each other.
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This is the Minnesota I grew up in and still believe in. But it's also a Minnesota I see today's DFL working to remake in its own politically correct, urban image. Listen to a DFL politician today, and he or she will promise you the world: new programs and billions in new spending - all paid for by somebody else. But look at what they fight for, things like light rail or streetcars in the Twin Cities, regulations against farming and mining, and making Minnesota a "sanctuary state" for illegal immigrants.
Not one of these things will make it easier for average Minnesotans to get ahead. And that is what a governor should be focused on.
We've seen how the administration of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton has failed to look out for the average Minnesotan. Whether it's blocking billions of dollars of major projects in Greater Minnesota or trying to regulate farmers out of business, the DFL vision is about regulators, not regular people.
The DFL raised taxes by billions of dollars while wasting $100 million to destroy our auto license and registration system; and it enabled more than $100 million from taxpayers to be flown in suitcases out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport to Somalia.
Yet there are no real consequences to the people in government responsible for letting us all down. There's no accountability.
Democrats know how to promise things, but it's not what you promise that matters. It's what you are willing to stand up for and fight for.
I am running for governor because I still believe that the values that built this state are the ones that will make it even greater in the coming years. And I believe that those values are worth fighting for. Working hard, obeying the law, caring for our most vulnerable citizens, and being willing to contribute more than we take are core Minnesota values.
Those are the values that allowed my dad to return from the Marines and build a life and a nest egg that set my sister and me up for success. It's those values that my wife, Sondi, and I have taught our kids. And it's those values that we share with millions of farmers, laborers, and hard-working Minnesotans who make this state work.
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Jeff Johnson of Plymouth, Minn., is the Republican candidate for Minnesota governor. He wrote this at the invitation of the News Tribune Opinion page. Election Day is Nov. 6.
