Al Eisele: Minnesota's influence making a comeback in Washington

Tomorrow Minnesota Public Radio News goes to Washington! Cathy Wurzer will broadcast live from the nation's Capitol Tuesday and Wednesday. She'll talk to politicians, lobbyists and independent political observers about how power is wielded in Washington and how that affects Minnesota.

While preparing for the show, the Morning Edition crew ran into Al Eisele, a native of Blue Earth, Minnesota and Editor-at-Large of The Hill, a D.C. political newspaper. Eisele talks about how Minnesota's clout in Washington has had its ups and downs since he arrived there more than four decades ago, and why right now it appears to be making a comeback.

AL EISELE:

"Minnesota had a very high profile here with two Vice Presidents: Humphrey and Mondale and of course McCarthy's anti-war candidacy in 68, Orville Freeman, secretary of agriculture, Bob Bergland, secretary of agriculture, all kinds of top officials here, and a very active and important Congressional delegation as well.

"I wrote a piece for The Rake in 2003, a Twin Cities magazine that no longer exists, and at that time in 2003 I said that Minnesota's influence had waned here and that it was nothing like it had been in the last half of the 20th century,with the death of Hubert Humphrey and later Gene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone and Walter Mondale losing his seat and the passing of a lot of great political figures.

"But now I see signs of a resurgence of Minnesota's influence here. For instance, you've got Denis McDonough, who's from Stillwater, who is the Deputy National Security Advisor at the White House. You've got a very strong Congressional delegation, you've got two potential presidential candidates in Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann so it looks like Minnesota is coming back in the second decade of the 21st century."