Now that it’s official, now that Senator Barack Obama is the anointed candidate of the Democratic party, Minnesotans should take a moment to celebrate. Why?  No Minnesotan is on the national ticket.  More than that, no Minnesota Democrat ran for the top spot, and none was within spitting distance of the longest of lists for the second spot.  So why should we Minnesotans be patting ourselves on our backs?

            Here’s why.  Precisely twice in the past forty years has the party put forth a truly credible, deserving, national candidate.  The first was 1968 when Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was the party’s standard-bearer.  The second was 1984 when former Vice-President Walter Mondale was the party’s sacrificial lamb.  That’s it.  If a third is to be added to this short list, it would have to be George McGovern of South Dakota, which is not just next door to Minnesota, but happens to have been the birthplace of Hubert Humphrey.

            Confused?  Maybe even angry?  Bear with me.  What do we look for in a presidential candidate?  The minimum qualifications can be summarized as follows: competence, character, and the common touch.  One might be tempted to add a fourth C by inserting that over-blown, over-used, over-rated word “charisma.”  But let’s stick with three C’s. Subsumed within them are experience, integrity, and an ability to connect with voters.

            I know.  Humphrey lost a race he might well have won, and Mondale got creamed.  So where was their connection with the voters?  Look at their sterling record with Minnesota voters.  Then look at what each faced, namely an increasingly unpopular war (1968) and an increasingly popular incumbent (1984).

            Now let’s look at the rest of the picture—and the remaining candidates. Carter had two of the three, but lacked experience as a candidate and quickly demonstrated his incompetence as president.  Just ask his vice-president, who almost resigned in the middle of the mess.

            Then there was Michael Dukakis, who stressed his competence, possessed unquestioned integrity, but exuded standoffishness with his every word and gesture.  Which brings us to Bill Clinton, who did possess a good deal of executive experience and a genuine ability to appear to be one of the boys.  But there was—and remained—that not so small matter of character.

            In 2000 the Democrats turned to an experienced politician of quite solid character.  A veteran congressman/senator and eight year veep, Al Gore seemed to have it all.  But he didn’t. Just ask any of those advisers who tried to turn this Tennessee aristocrat into something that he wasn’t—and couldn’t be.

Is an American aristocrat unable to connect with ordinary voters and their daily lives?  Of course not. Think TR and FDR and JFK.  Are candidates of ordinary backgrounds unable to make this leap?  Of course. Think Dukakis.  

Four years after Gore’s narrow defeat the party met a similar fate, with a similarly, and yet more deeply, flawed candidate.  While no one could doubt John Kerry’s experience, albeit of a non-executive nature, there were questions of character and obvious disconnects with ordinary voters.   Like the cape-draped, cigarette holder-flashing FDR, the wind surfing, chablis-sipping senator from Massachusetts did not disguise his distance from the masses.  Unlike FDR, he proved to be thoroughly incompetent when it came to bridging that gap.

            In 2008 the Democrats have returned to 1976 in that they are offering us a candidate weak on experience and strong on voter appeal.  There are nagging questions of character, but nothing that approaches the eruptions as measured by the Clintonite scale—and certainly nothing that ought to be a reason to vote against him. 

But of course 2008 is not 1976, and Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter.  He has much less executive experience than the Georgia governor and a whole lot more rock star power. So we’ll see what happens come November.

In the meantime, we Minnesotans can take a measure of pride in what we offered the country, namely well-seasoned presidential candidates of unassailable integrity and a track record of proven political success, men of ordinary backgrounds who had extraordinary political careers.

Really, it shouldn’t be that hard to find a candidate with all three C’s already well-established on his (or her) resume. But apparently it is. Just look at the track record of the Democrats since 1968.