What Would Klobesota Look Like?

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

Land of 10,000 Staplers? Reformer Envisions MN Under Gov. Klobuchar.

Most Racket readers likely view U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar as a bloodless big-biz Democrat, one whose dated devotion to across-the-aisle centrism yields legislative wins so pointless they appeal to nobody rather than everybody. Those with long memories recall her tough-on-crime, soft-on-cops run as Hennepin County Attorney; those who were online last year caught her grinning alongside genocidal Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. So we don't anticipate much comment-section enthusiasm for future Minnesota Gov. Amy Klobuchar, but her campaign shot out to a commanding financial lead.

With that in mind, Minnesota Reformer Editor-in-Chief J. Patrick Coolican attempted to sketch out what Minnesota would look like under Gov. Klobuchar's rule. At first, Coolican addresses longstanding chatter about her being an "infamous micromanager" whose D.C. office is defined by “volatility, highhandedness and distrust" and its boss's "obsession with public image."

Coolican then pivots to Klobuchar's virtues—heroic victory margins, tireless work effort, job-appropriate micromanaging, and "expert political meteorology." He argues that she would serve as a needed counterbalance to younger, more ambitious, and much more progressive DFLers, "a coolant to the ideological passions of a DFL Legislature by hewing to a popular, achievable agenda." Personally, I question the Democratic Party's unwavering (and donor-appeasing) commitment to Third Way-parroting "pragmatic" moderates like Klobuchar, and we've got our current Hell World to show for it. Why not give "ideological passions" a chance on a statewide ballot? It recently worked in a blue city of 8.5 million.

Anyway, our real gripe is with Coolican's kicker: "And, she’ll finally endorse the Minnesota State Fair as the world’s finest." Hm, somebody missed our petty-ass victory lap three years ago! We eagerly await a groveling correction.

With Cheerios Pissy, Billionaire Heiress Cathy Cargill Exits Duluth's Park Point

Non-billionaire Minnesotans were gripped by the 2024 saga of Cathy Cargill secretively buying up parcels along Duluth's Park Point, the world's largest sandbar that happens to be a historic neighborhood. (Read our essay-length thoughts here.)

Now it seems Cargill's vision of transforming Park Park into a one-percent paradise littered with coffee shops, pickleball courts, and homes for fellow Cargills won't ever materialize. Duluth-based Stribber Jana Hollingsworth reports that the heiress has been liquidating her property portfolio along Lake Superior, including a crown jewel $4 million beachfront home that, charitably, we'll call a '90s McMansion nightmare of eyeball-poisoning proportions.

Cargill didn't respond to Hollingsworth for comment, and her real estate agent hung up on the reporter. Par for the course considering Cargill threatened to sue the Duluth News Tribune for breaking news that, in her words, she was buying up "pieces of crap" homes in the "small-minded community." What a lovely woman.

Northfield Latte Takes Over World

Last month Northfield coffee shop Little Joy published an Instagram post encouraging similar businesses around the world to steal the recipe for its raspberry Danish latte, which we gotta say, looks fucking delicious.

“I was thinking to myself, ‘OK, what if only like five people put this on their menu?’” Larson tells CNN. "I thought, at best, it would be maybe a dozen shops.”

A lot more than that heeded the call: 480+ shops spanning 40+ countries have tagged Little Joy on Insta, letting LJ owner Cody Larson know that the latte landed on their menus. A map showing pins that locate participating shops has been viewed over 3 million times, a figure that CNN notes is much larger than the population of Northfield (20,790).

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” shop manager Asha Fisher says. “It’s safe to say this seasonal special has been a standout.”

CNN then gets into a cute quickie history of Northfield, who we must chastise for butchering part of its formerly perfect slogan: “Cows, Colleges and Contentment.”

INFEDELITY WATCH: Loud Schooner Tavern Scoundrels Reportedly Plot Extramarital Sex

TikToks rarely come across my transom (I'm old!), but the one below feels... well, certainly not important, but entertaining for tawdry townie reasons.

In it, our TikToker narrator describes an eyebrow-raising scene last Saturday at the Schooner Tavern in Minneapolis. Allegedly, she sat near a table of three dudes, one of whom appeared to be a pickup artist guru who was loudly instructing the other two about the finer points of cheating on your wife.

"It sounded like a villain twisting their mustache… very bizarre," our narrator recalls. Her details (one wore a white sweatshirt that read "Minnesotan Bushmen"?) seem too specific for fictitious engagement bait. "Reposting from Australia hoping somehow to help visibility in Minnesota," reads one of the top-voted comments on the video, which has attracted almost 50,000 views.

Was your dopey husband at the Schooner between 10 p.m. and midnight? Start asking questions...