Nick Coleman: An election in search of middle ground

The middle of the road can be dangerous, because the middle is where road kill comes from. But there are times when the wisest course is to find the center. If you are trying to balance across a narrow rope bridge over a raging stream, for example, taking the center is the only way to survive.

Sadly, the middle in Minnesota politics has almost disappeared, just as the state faces more difficulties than at any period in most of our lifetimes.

With a little more than a year until Minnesota picks a new governor, the field is crowded with partisan candidates -- more than I recall ever before -- but the middle remains wide open. There are about two dozen possible candidates, half current or former legislators, which shows you that although the Legislature has accomplished little in recent years, it is full of dreamers. And ambition.

Many of the candidates are talented and likable. But many are also engaged in partisan pandering as they try to appeal to their party bases -- the true believers who have turned politics into a fistfight at almost every level of government. It is impossible to look at this motley crew of candidates and not be discouraged about the future of our state, which has entered a hazardous era of huge deficits just as revenues and resources have shrunk and needs have expanded. If the center cannot hold, as Yeats said, things fall apart.

We've had enough falling apart lately. It's time to reclaim the center.

Because of the extreme partisanship of our time, however, Minnesota's parties seem to be moving further apart. At a recent candidates' forum held to discuss solutions to hunger, almost everyone ran true to form, with the Democrats saying they would raise taxes and the Republicans saying they would shrink government. Neither approach, if your family is hungry, will put food in your mouth anytime soon.

You say your home is on fire? The Democrats will raise taxes and install sprinklers. The Republicans will suggest you organize a volunteer bucket brigade. Your house will burn down.

Last month, at the "budget summit" of former state leaders of all main parties, the one true thing that emerged was that the way forward runs through the middle: There will have to be budget cuts and tax increases for Minnesota to balance its budget, maintain essential services and keep the safety net up for the neediest of its citizens. Without an underlying agreement between all sides about the nature of the challenges and what needs to be done, more divisions lie ahead.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the most partisan governor the state has had in decades, blew off that meeting to continue pandering to the far-right base of the national GOP -- a strategy that has begun to damage the Republican brand in Minnesota. Pawlenty's pandering to those elements has taken so much of his time that he is making a case that maybe Minnesota doesn't need a governor except on ceremonial occasions.

Maybe Carol Molnau (remember her?) can handle those chores.

The truth is Minnesota needs a governor more than ever, one who will work with all sides to get Minnesota moving, and nudge it back toward the middle. Whether the next governor is a Democrat or a Republican doesn't matter a tinker's dam. It might be best if the next governor were neither.

Listen to the words of three wise men, a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent. None of them is running for governor, but each of them might make a pretty good one:

Now, Jim Ramstad, the retired nine-term moderate Republican congressman from the western suburbs: "The political climate is so polarized, so hostile, so bitter that there's a crying need for an end to it. I hope whoever's elected governor will bring people together and work on the serious problems we face without more partisanship. The people are sick and tired of it."

Lastly, Jack Uldrich, chair of the Minnesota Independence Party: "The opening in the center is so huge that anyone with a dose of common sense and a willingness to innovate and do things differently could drive right through. We can't keep operating the way we are going now."

Problem-solving, bringing people together, doing things differently. They used to spell "Minnesota."

Come back to the middle, Minnesota. The only place we'll end up by going far right or left is the ditch.