Since this is the week of the Vice Presidential Debate, our Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz, will be in the media spotlight.
While he was just picked by the Harris campaign in July, it has seemed as if he was campaigning for a bigger office for some time. He and Florida Governor & former-GOP Presidential Candidate, Ron DeSantis – who we also have a first-hand view of since we are part-time residents near Orlando – have been regularly sparring on X the last few years.
I won’t get into their politics today, but it is bizarre to see the obvious disdain for each other between the two states. In particular, the Minnesota media regularly trashes Florida. This is despite the fact that more people are leaving Minnesota for Florida – than anywhere else. Minnesota lost about a thousand people a week in population in 2023 – the seventh biggest population loss among the 50 states. At the same time, Florida gained about 4,000 people a week – the most of any state.
This spring, we were at our place in Florida when I saw our MN Governor tweet out a link to this NBC story (link below) that said that people were fleeing Florida in “droves”. It was featured on the Minneapolis NBC affiliate as well.
LINK: Fleeing Florida’s Sun & Sand
In the story, in between the anecdotes of armadillo invasions and high insurance costs (true), NBC seemed to have buried the fact that Florida is also #1 for economic growth, #3 job growth, #1 for education (K-12/Universities), and still draws a NET of 4,000 new residents a week. That doesn’t even include out-of-state resident snowbirds like us. (By comparison, MN is a lackluster #26 for economic growth, #35 new jobs, #17 for education).
It’s not that one state is better for everyone, and it’s really strange to see the two Governors & local media bad-mouthing the other state. As residents of both states, there are real economic, political, and cultural differences that we see up close. Some we like, some we don’t. Not to mention the differences in the weather!
A recent Condé Nast Traveler analysis of the “Best Cities to Retire To” had 4 Florida cities in the Top 5 – including our metro, Orlando. The one non-Florida city? Minneapolis! Different strokes, people. You can be happy wherever you live.
Does your state have a political / cultural rival?
MrFireStation 
Gruesome Newscum debated Ron DeSantis while DeSantis was still running for President. I didn’t watch it, but my favorite line from DeSantis was along the lines that Newscum is doing such a great job mismanaging The People’s Republic of California that Newscum’s Mother and Father-In-Law moved from California to Florida. This debate happened before the full extent of Newscum’s budget deficits were known.
Governor Abbott of Texas is also syphoning off businesses and productive tax paying citizens from California, including my oldest son. Both states are actively recruiting businesses and productive tax paying citizens to move. Nevada also sends us mailers featuring real estate by Reno in State Income Tax Free Nevada.
FJB only learned one thing when working under Obama as Vice President. Hire a more stupid Vice President to serve as impeachment insurance. Cackling Kamala has hired her even more stupid Vice Presidential impeachment insurance policy when she selected Walz.
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I remember that ‘debate’ with DeSantis & Newsom. With each question, they would show data comparing the two states to highlight the issue. California looked really bad.
I’m not all-in on DeSantis by any means, but the bar was pretty low on economic results compared with California.
That said, policy decisions put voters in the water like lobsters. Most voters don’t sense how bad things have become until it is too late.
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Voters need to pay less attention to what politicians say and more attention to the numbers and results.
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Yes! – As Milton Friedman noted, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
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