Big Doormat for Big Med? Revisiting Walz’s Attempts to Please Mayo Clinic.

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

Walz Watch: Extra Mayo Edition

It’s a very Minnesota problem: Tim Walz may have been too accommodating during his time as governor. That’s what Max Nesterak and Jessica Lussenhop conclude in this excellent ProPublica piece examining the VP hopeful’s big business track record. For example, Walz has drawn criticism for placating billion-dollar corporations that threaten to take their business elsewhere if certain legislation passed or if they were, you know, are actually expected to follow the law.

This year, when Uber and Lyft threatened to leave Minnesota over a new minimum wage bill, he vetoed it, eventually signing a different one that didn't rankle rideshare companies. In 2023, Rochester's all-powerful Mayo Clinic managed to get a special exemption on a nurse staffing bill while successfully lobbying to kill another bill that would penalize hospitals charging above a board-approved rate. (“The cost of care at Mayo is 88% higher than the state average,” ProPublica points out.) Is this just the cost of doing politics in a state blessed and/or cursed with so many Fortune 500 companies?

“Is that caving or is that pragmatism?” asks Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the U of M. “I think what you're seeing is how you govern the progressive way in the real world.”

“Moderate Democrats, they haven’t been able to stand up to the hospital industry," adds Gillian Mason with Healthcare NOW, a progressive org that advocates for single-payer health care. "That’s a pattern all over the country."

Walkin’ Dog Walks Back Into Existence

Here at Racket, we’re big fans of hot dogs. We’re also big fans of tasty cheap eats. So when we heard the triumphant return of Walkin’ Dog, a formerly closed downtown Minneapolis skyway spot offering both of these things, we had to give it a shoutout.

Located in downtown Minneapolis in the Northstar Center (618 Second Ave. S.), the tubed meat purveyor opened in 1991, selling Vienna sausage-made dogs with plenty of options for fixin’s. When it closed in April of 2023, its fate appeared uncertain at best. But low and behold, it’s back.

The entire building is back, with a renovated first-floor space anchored by Northstar Cafeteria, a nod to ‘60s downtown dining (with the $14 plates of 2024, natch). According to this Reddit thread, Walkin' Dog 2.0 is serving up breakfast sammies and other eats as well.

Former Op-eds on Strib’s Non-Endorsement: ‘God, Not This Year.’ 

In August, the Minnesota Star Tribune announced that the Editorial Board would be taking a pause on any campaign endorsements this year. In September, the paper confirmed that it would endorse voting—not specific candidates—this November. So former Strib editorial page editor Jim Boyd decided to rally a bunch of alumni and release their own dang endorsement earlier today. (They’re for Democrat Kamala Harris, in case you were wondering.)

“It’s the responsibility of the newspaper to do this,” Boyd tells Lev Gringauze for MinnPost. “If you want to have some kind of roundtable discussion of the value of editorial endorsements, fine, go do it. But God, not this year.”

The Strib is one of many news outlets opting not to endorse candidates this year, including The Washington Post, USA Today, and LA Times. While studies have shown that endorsements have little to no influence on election outcomes, not doing so can impact a newspapers’ bottom line; WaPo lost over 200K digital subscribers last week, though its situation is unique—billionaire owner Jeff Bezos reportedly yanked a planned Harris endorsement, just ahead of Election Day.

Happy Halloween From the ‘80s

Earlier this week the Old Minneapolis Facebook group unearthed this very special commercial break, which they say came from 1987. It’s a pretty good one, featuring Jake Esau from local horror movie show Count Dracula Presents shilling a New Brighton car dealership followed by an ad for an album by local goth-metal icons Morticia.