Clockwise from upper left: Quinn, Blagojevich, Andersen, Rolvaag (MHS)

Clockwise from upper left: Quinn, Blagojevich, Andersen, Rolvaag (MHS)

Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn is calling for the resignation of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a man with whom he shared a ticket but apparently little else (except antipathy). Despite making overtures and even having once defended his embattled boss’s integrity, Quinn says he hasn’t spoken to Blagojevich since Aug. 2, 2007.

That’s a contrast with Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Pawlenty stood by Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau and pleaded her case until the state Senate canned her from her moonlighting stint as state transportation commissioner in the wake of the I-35W bridge collapse — which by coincidence occurred the day before Quinn’s last talk with Blagojevich.

So things are different in Illinois and Minnesota, at least in that respect. But the distant relationship between Blagojevich and his second-in-command does have at least one parallel in Minnesota, from the time of the last great statewide election recount in 1962.

The rivals in the race for governor that year were the sitting governor, Republican Elmer L. Andersen, and the sitting lieutenant governor, DFLer Karl Rolvaag. (Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in those days did not run together on a ticket, so the office-holders weren’t necessarily of the same party.) After each won election to two-year terms in 1960, their 1962 clash was inevitable, according to the 1964 book “Recount” by Ronald F. Stinnett and Charles H. Backstrom.

Rolvaag, who had already served three terms as lieutenant governor, and Andersen, a 10-year state Senate veteran, “had personalities and philosophies so different that they could only resolve into opposition for the governorship in 1962,” Stinnett and Backstrom wrote, adding:

Karl Rolvaag stated several times just prior to his ascension from the “broom closet” to the plush parlors of the Governor’s suite that he had been in the Governor’s office only twice during Andersen’s term.

(The “broom closet” was a small office to which Rolvaag decamped toward the end of the 139-day recount, to make way for A.M. “Sandy” Keith, a fellow DFLer whose separate election in 1962 to the office of lieutenant governor was undisputed.)

By the end of the recount, which gave Rolvaag a 91-vote victory over Andersen, the two men exhibited a civility toward one another not seen between Blagojevich and Quinn — or between current recount rivals Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman for that matter. Still, during the two years they spent working — in theory — together, the relationship was an arm’s-length one on par with the current occupants of Illinois’ Statehouse.

Andersen left Rolvaag alone to do the one duty of a lieutenant governor: oversee the state Senate, which then met only 90 days per year. He might have more profitably given Rolvaag something else to do, even running the state transportation department. Instead Rolvaag enjoyed plenty of spare time in which to plot his campaign to topple Andersen.

The Rolvaag-Andersen contest is one such rivalry that NPR’s Political Junkie blog cites in a useful overview of the governor-lieutenant governor relationship in America, inspired by Quinn’s comments Thursday. Today in 18 states, voters elect candidates to those offices separately. Among the other states, Illinois is one of seven in which candidates are nominated individually (running separately in party primaries in Illinois), only to unite on a single ticket for the general election.

That allows plenty of opportunity for potentially distant shotgun marriages around the country, though few reach the caustic depths of one calling for the other’s ouster as in Illinois today – or the razor’s-edge rivalry of Minnesota in 1962.