People were grateful for the diversion, and of course politics is pretty much debased this year anyway. He glided in under the political radar. Right up to about 10 o'clock on election night the local press treated him like a cartoon character. He mused about the death penalty and legal prostitution, which are not winning issues here except among drunks, but nobody held it against him. He likened the war on drugs to Prohibition and called it a failure.
People let that one go too.
And then he won. We are a state of highly repressed Scandinavians, and sometimes we like to surprise ourselves. Now we have the inauguration to look forward to. He promised to be lowered by helicopter to the capitol dome and rappel down the side of the building, and that would sure be something to see. Meanwhile, everybody in Minnesota can do a pretty good Jesse imitation.