Dr. Steven Miles

Former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton insists his alcoholism (recurrent but treated) and depression (mild and controlled) aren’t debilitating. To a former DFL rival who’s also a physician, that sounds right. Dr. Steven Miles says the effects of both afflictions are overrated in politics.

“Depression is rarely disabling,” Miles tells the Minnesota Independent by email, adding that “only jackals would suggest that it alone renders him unfit for office compared to someone like [U.S. Rep.] Michele Bachmann who appears stone-cold sober.”

Miles concedes that “alcoholism can be disabling for some kinds of activities.” But he says “it is rarely disabling for effective political careers.” He cites as examples the late Minnesota Gov. Karl Rolvaag and “the extraordinary leadership of [the late U.S. Rep.] Wilbur Mills (who ushered in Medicare)”.

Indeed, many times it is alcoholism itself that gets abused — as an excuse for bad behavior.

“Today, when politicians get caught with their pants down, they reveal and blame alcoholism — exaggerating its impact and the corresponding public perception that it impaired their judgment,” Miles says. An early example is the late Sen. Joe McCarthy — “a mean SOB who happened to be an alcoholic.”

Miles is no automatic Dayton apologist. When Dayton and his wallet made a late entry in the 2000 U.S. Senate race, Miles told Minnesota Public Radio that a bank account doesn’t equal a political base, and that Dayton seemed to be running because he had nothing else to do.

But Miles has personal experience with bipolar disorder. His dealings with depression became public when he successfully fought to keep his mental health files out of the hands of the state Board of Medical Practice (pdf), and he remained open about his condition during his 2000 U.S. Senate run.

Miles was a runner-up that year, a second-place finisher in the first two ballots at the state party convention, behind former state Sen. Jerry Janezich, who went on to win endorsement after the ninth ballot but lost to Dayton in the DFL primary.

What were the chances that two people in the DFL’s 2000 field of Senate candidates would suffer from depression?

Actually, pretty good. According to Miles, the lifetime risk of depression is about 10–15 percent, and for alcoholism about 5 percent.

“The nation would lose enormous talent and productivity by sidelining these people,” Miles says.

Elmer L. Andersen (ca. 1965), by Edward Vincent Brewer. MHS

Gov. Elmer L. Andersen’s full statement of Saturday, March 23, 1963, as printed in the Minneapolis Tribune the following day:

After the most careful consideration I have decided not to appeal the ruling of the district judge panel. There is no justification for appeal simply because the Supreme Court has already made its position clear on certain categories of irregular ballots and there is no way to judge the remainder so as to reverse the result of the lower court. 

This is the  anlysis of my counsel, Messers. Kyle and Morton, and Recount Director Tom Swain, all of whom have done a perfectly magnificent job in my behalf. 

To the very many people who have urged me in the most strenuous terms to appeal to the Supreme Court, I may say with equal emphasis, that were there the slightest basis for expecting a reveral of judgment, I most certainly [would] appeal. 

On the other hand, when a competent and fair tribunal, which the district judge panel most certainly has been, renders a judgment that skilled representatives of mine feel cannot be successfully challenged in a higher court, then no one could expect me to appeal in order to gain time or keep possession of this office until the last possible moment. 

When the canvassing board declared me the winner and the contest started, my supervisors and I were confident the final result would be victory for me by an increased margin. 

I decided to carry on all the duties and responsibilities of governor as best I could, under the circumstances, and this I have done. 

As a result, legislative and administrative programs have moved ahead in a positive way. 

To those who wonder why the recount changed the original result, I would point out that there is about the same percentage of irregular ballots among Republican voters as DFL. I had 15,000 more paper ballot votes than my opponent, thus the opposition had 15,000 more chances to find irregular ballots than our people did. I am confident my recounters found every vote there was to be found. 

Actually no one can know for sure who had the most voters’ support last Nov. 6th as more tha 1,300 ballots were thrown out, and the established margin of victory is only 91. 

To those who suggest that this then could only be resolved by a run-off election, the answer is that there is no provision in our constitution or statutory law for such a solution. This is a matter for legislative consideration to apply to future elections. 

To those who wonder why it has taken so long to decide this election, may I say it is only because it is so close. Out of this experience every citizen can gain a heightened appreciation of each vote and awareness for the need of casting it properly, and suggestions for improving election lawss and procedures. 

I will not attempt at this time to reveiw and assess all the accomplishements of my administration, but I know there has been solid achievement in the fields of human rights, goverment services, jobs and economic growth (particularly for northeastern Minnesota), traffic safety, improvement in the state’s finances, natural resource development and future planning. 

It is particularly gratifying to have won for the people a right to vote on a taconite amendment for which I fought so long, and at times, almost alone. 

To me it has been a fruitful and rewarding two and one quarter years. I am thankful to state employees, department heads, legislators, study group members and all others who have contributed time, thought and energy to provide such substantial gain in so many areas, in so short a time. 

May I say a special word of thanks to all members of the news media, with whom I have always enjoyed working, for their diligence in presenting news of Minnesota state government. 

Monday I will file a waiver of waiting period with the Ramsey County District Court which will permit a certificate of election to be issued to Mr. Rolvaag. 

My staff will be here Monday morning until Mr. Rolvaag has qualified and his people arrive. I have written Mr. Rolvaag my beset wishes and placed my executive secretary, Mr. Milton Knoll, in communication with Mr. William Shovell, so there can be an orderly transition. 

As to my own future plans, I will be consulting with my loyal and devoted staff on their relocation. It will not be my plan to return to the active management of H.B. Fuller Co., although I will return to my office there and assume a position to be determined. My main activity will continue to be in the field of community and public  service as it has been for some years. 

I would particularly like to puruse the long-range New Dimension Natural Resource program which we have launched. 

Today ends one chapter, admittedly a shorter chapter than I had intended, but there are more to be written. I am disappointed but not the least discouraged: I am defeated but not the least disheartened. I am deeply grateful to the people of Minnesota for the privilege that has been mine to serve as governor of this great state which means so much to me, and to the thousands of unselfish workers for better government who have given me their support. 

Our son, Tony, and his wife, Alice, are home from New York for this weekend, as is my college son, Julian. With Emily and my wife, Eleanor, who has given so much to me, our family is united. 

Our love has deepened and broadened through this experience. We are thankful we have retained good health, and we continue to be humbly grateful for the rich blessings of God that we have so abundantly received.

Clockwise from upper left: Coleman, Franken, Rolvaag, Andersen

It would seem out of character at this point for Norm Coleman to concede the race for the Senate seat he occupied until Saturday, even after this morning’s negative ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court and the certification of the vote in favor of rival Al Franken by the State Canvassing Board this afternoon. But it could happen — just read between the lines of his recount lawyer’s remarks yesterday, or listen to former senator and Vice President Walter Mondale today. A close reading of what Coleman recount attorney Fritz Knaak said on Sunday suggests that it’s Coleman’s choice whether to proceed with an election contest. And that implies that Coleman might at least be considering not contesting the election — in other words, conceding.

That’s exactly what Mondale had in mind when he told Minnesota Public Radio listeners today that he recommends the example of Republican Gov. Elmer L. Andersen, who, as the incumbent in Minnesota’s last big statewide recount in 1962–63, bowed out rather than pursue an appeal to the state’s highest court. “When we got to a point like this,” Mondale recalled (and he was not only there but, as the state’s popular attorney general, was very nearly a candidate himself), “Elmer Andersen said, ‘No, this has gone on long enough.”

The parallel isn’t exact, because by the time Andersen conceded it was March 23, 1963, and the election had already been a three-judge review of the sort that would look at the current vote if Coleman files for an election contest. But the candidates’ words from that time could stand as a model (or, more likely, as a contrast) for Minnesota’s current recount rivals.

Gov. Elmer L. Andersen:

Today ends one chapter, admittedly a shorter chapter than I intended, but there are more to be written. I am disappointed but not the least discouraged; I am defeated but not the least disheartened.

Lt. Gov. Karl Rolvaag (of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, who succeeded Andersen as governor after Andersen’s concession):

I am sure the decision made this afternoon by Governor Andersen was a most difficult one. Had he chosen to go on and exercise his right or appeal in this matter, I hope that no voice would have been raised against that decision. I do not believe it would be possible for any person to adequately describe the tremendous pressures, the anxieties and the physical demands placed upon the parties to this recount action. … While at no time during these long months did I ever despair of emerging the victor, there were times when the situation became seemingly unendurable. I would assume that through these many months Mr. Andersen was constantly beset by similar pressures which only he could begin to describe. To continue in office in the face of the vicissitudes of the contest we have just completed must be an agony of its own.

▲ What elected official set the table for both the 1962 and 2008 recounts by backing out of or losing a race?

▲ How does the name Freeman figure into the 1962 and 2008 recounts?

▲ What are two echoes in 2008 of the Highway 35 scandal in 1962?

Answers after the jump. Answers:

▲ Walter Mondale. As Minnesota’s young attorney general in 1962, his decision not to pursue the DFL endorsement for governor left the field open for eventual winner Karl Rolvaag. And in 2002, Mondale’s unsuccessful last-minute candidacy as a fill-in for the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone set the stage for Republican Norm Coleman to seek re-election to the seat in 2008.

▲ Gov. Orville Freeman lost to Republican State Sen. Elmer Andersen in 1960, setting up the 1962 contest between Rolvaag and Anderson. In 2008, Mike Freeman, Orville Freeman’s son, used his position as Hennepin County attorney to propose that local officials sort rejected absentee ballots so as to create a so-called “fifth pile” of ballots that had been wrongly rejected.

▲ The I-35W bridge collapse in 2007 and reconstruction in 2008 occurred on the same highway that was the subject of a scandal that broke just before the 1962 election concerning construction costs, possibly hurting Andersen. The 2008 election had its own last-minute scandal involving lawsuits filed in Texas and Delaware that alleged that businessman Nasser Kazeminy had funneled money to Coleman via Coleman’s wife’s job. That scandal may have hurt the Coleman vote.

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.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s story, the princess’ sleeplessness at night and bruises by morning — all from a tiny pea many mattresses below her — are proof of her royalty. In Minnesota’s recount story, neither man rests well, tossing and turning because at the bottom of each pile lies a growing bundle of the other man’s challenged ballots. Franken can brag of a bigger bruise caused by Coleman’s 1,836 challenges, but Franken’s forces have challenged 1,758 ballots that sure make Coleman sore.

Who is the real princess? Coleman has 238 more votes than Franken as of 8 p.m. Tuesday, according to Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s office. It has to be one of these jokers.

A more interesting question might be who is the real queen. Which person or body will determine who is Minnesota senatorial royalty? Is it the four wise men and one wise woman of the State Canvassing Board, who meet Wednesday morning on whether they can count rejected absentee ballots? Or is it Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who may name someone to fill a senatorial absence? Or the U.S. Senate itself, or a judge or judges somewhere?

The only thing that’s certain is that Hans C. Andersen lost the governorship to Ole Rolvaag in 1962 in the last Great Minnesota Recount. Check your storybooks.

The first graph comes from the 1964 book Recount, by Ronald F. Stinnett and Charles H. Backstrom, an authoritative account of the legendarily close election two years earlier for governor of Minnesota. That contest ended — after 139 days of counting and recounting — with a 91-vote margin of victory for Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party challenger Karl Rolvaag over the Republican incumbent Elmer L. Andersen. But it started with an electoral see-saw of first thousands and then dozens of votes that saw the lead change six times in four days.

The graph is a snapshot of a little more than a day of that upheaval, from 9 p.m. election night until midnight the next day. Two lines show the size of the gap favoring first Rolvaag and then Andersen, as tracked by the rival news services United Press and The Associated Press, who were competing for the latest counts from counties across the state. At first, the lines rise sharply into territory indicating a Rolvaag plurality, then dive steeply down as press tallies indicated an Andersen lead, the first of a pattern of plurality shifts that continued for days after the time period depicted in the graph.

The second graph shows a different 28 hours in last week’s counting, based on tabulations courtesy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press’s Political Animal Twitter feed, from nearly 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, to past 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7. Over that time, the vote margin favoring U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman dropped from 590 to 221 votes, with a few sudden jolts but no swings in the lead.

How the gap in the Minnesota gubernatorial vote count changed over 27 hours, Nov. 6–7, 1962, in thousands of votes. Lead for Rolvaag in the upper half of the graph, lead for Andersen in the lower half.

How the lead for U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman changed in the Minnesota senatorial vote count over 28 hours, Nov. 6–7, 2008, in hundreds of votes.