Photos: sc.gov, MNHS

Photos: sc.gov, mnhs

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is due back at work today following a mysterious several-day absence. For Minnesotans whose memories extend to the 1970s, news of an AWOL governor evokes the early days of Gov. Rudy Perpich’s first term in office — days Perpich spent out of the office, whereabouts (then) unknown.

Sanford’s activities since last Thursday haven’t been explained any better than have his attempts to refuse $700 billion in federal stimulus funds for his recession-ravaged state. But the Republican seems to have been seeking respite from his state responsibilities (whether alone on the Appalachian Trail or on his cell phone in the Atlanta airport).

That wasn’t the case with Perpich, though it’s said both men gave their security detail the slip. Here’s how Perpich’s absence is explained in the book “Minnesota Politics and Government,” by Daniel Judah Elazar, Virginia Gray and Wyman Spano:

In his first, short, two-year term Perpich was primarily a reactor to current events as opposed to the perpatetic idea-generator he would become during his second eight-year term. The first term began not long after permits had been issued for the construction of a major power line to run diagonally across the state. Farmers and more militant environmentalists strenuously opposed the line, and Perpich received extensive publicity for driving out alone and unannounced to talk to people along the line’s route. Staff from the period insist that Perpich’s actions were not studied. He was not trying to create the image of a caring populist. Rather, he simply decided he wanted to talk to opponents and then did it before anything could be organized.

One of the community organizers working with the outraged farmers and environmentalists was Carleton College political science professor Paul Wellstone, who later wrote about Perpich’s mystery trip in more detail. Here’s an excerpt from the book “Powerline” by Paul David Wellstone, Barry M. Casper and Tom Harkin:

Soon after Rudy Perpich became governor on December 29, 1976, he made headlines by disappearing mysteriously from his office for two days. When he returned on January 11, he disclosed that in an attempt to avert serious trouble brewing over the powerline, he had driven out to west-central Minnesota to meet with the protesting farmers. From the beginning of his tenure in office, Perpich personally committed himself to resolving the powerline controversy and publicly proclaimed it a high priority of his administration.

The governor had visited Pope County. While driving home from a convention in western Minnesota to nominate a successor to representative Bob Bergland, who was to become secretary of agriculture, Perpich decided to find out personally about the powerline. Evading his two bodyguards on the highway, he pulled into the local bar at Lowry and asked how to get to Dennis Rutledge’s farm. Rutledege, active in the protest and local DFL politics, remembers this evening well: “It was Sunday night. I was home early from the reserves because of a snowstorm. Jerry from the bar calls me and says, ‘There is a guy all dressed up in a suit who is asking for directions to the Dennis Rutledge farm. What do you want me to do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know who is playing a joke but send him out so I can see who this joker is.’ Pretty soon there was a knock at our door. My wife Nina answered and she shouts out, ‘It really is Governor Perpich!’”

Perpich talked with the Rutledges for about an hour and then they went out and met with the Rutledges’ neighbors. The governor drove the 150 miles back to St. Paul late that evening only to return the next morning to meet with more Pope County farmers throughout the day.

The antics not of Perpich but of another Minnesota governor, Jesse Ventura, qualified for the Associated Press’ shortlist of odd behavior by U.S. governors. Perpich did get a shout-out, in part due to his hair, from the Chicago Tribune — as Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s career began unraveling last summer.