Bob CollinsPresident Obama is in Minnesota today to the mostly giant shoulder shrug of the state. He’s giving a speech in Golden Valley and raising money for his re-election campaign.
Whenever Obama visits the state, it’s very hard not to think about one of the most amazing sights in the history of Minnesota politics.
It was four years ago Sunday that thousands of Minnesotans lined up through the streets of downtown Saint Paul to hear then-candidate Obama speak at Xcel Center (relive it here).
It was clearly a moment of political passion which has pretty much disappeared. Were the expectations of what life would be like four years later realistic?
The unemployment rate in the country that evening was 5.5 percent. Today, the government announced, the unemployment rate jumped to 8.2 percent.
The stock market had closed down 100 points that day — the Dow was at 12,402.85, after opening 12,503. Today, the market opened a few hundred points below that, and tanked big.
