Greg Boll

Who is Greg Boll?

Greg Boll is a former American politician and member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Boll was, somewhat unintentionally, one of the key players in the DFL Party’s “firestorm” that swept through southwestern Minnesota in the mid-1980s at the height of the Midwestern Farm Crisis. The party’s onslaught led to an unprecedented take-over of nearly all the legislative seats in southwestern Minnesota in the 1986 elections.

Dubbed the DFL’s “hatchet man” by Minnesota Republicans, Boll actively engaged the media to hammer away at the Republicans over what he maintained were their failed policies in rural America, using the farm crisis as the basis for his attacks. He also supported the somewhat militant Groundswell movement in its quest to bring political and social change on behalf of the region’s farmers. Utilizing a steady stream of scathing editorials and letters-to-the-editor in over thirty area newspapers, he made the case for change over the course of five election cycles, helping the DFL experience unprecedented success in the traditionally Republican small towns and rural communities of the region.